CIRCLE OP THE OWLS. 
331 
Richardson, an eye-witness of the habits of the species 
just mentioned, remarks that in the bleak territory of 
Hudson’s Bay, where it is very common, it is more fre- 
quently killed by the hunters than any other, from its 
boldness, and its habit of flying about by day. When the 
hunters are shooting grouse, this bird is occasionally at- 
tracted by the report of the gun, and is often bold enough, 
on a bird being killed, to pounce down upon it, though it 
may be unable, from its size, to carry it off. It is also 
known to hover round the fires made by the natives at 
night.* The African hawk owl, Surnin Africana, is 
probably another species, for it has all the aspect of the 
last. But the great ural owl, if truly represented in 
Temminck’s figure (I'l. Col. 27.), has a very large 
facial disk and long cuneated tail, precisely agreeing 
with the sub-genus Scotiaptex : so that the very error 
of its classification with the two former is a collateral 
proof that the series we have now traced is natural. 
(266.) Upon condensing the foregoing remarks, and 
divesting them of scientific technicalities, we find a 
gradual progression from the great-eared to the horned 
owls, by such birds as S. bracheotus and otiin, which 
unite in themselves the characters of the tw'o genera 
Strix arulAsio. The diurnal flight of the llelkiptex 
articus, and its whole appearance, show that the great 
white owl follows next. The little passerine owls of the 
tropics, with the burrowing species of America, which is 
probably the grallatorial type, form the genus Nycti- 
petes, and are obviously intermediate between the white 
or eagle and the hawk owls. These latter, it will be 
remembered, have unusually long tails, but no facial 
disk ; and Sootiaptex possesses the first, but not the 
second, of these characters. The long-tailed owls are 
thus brought together ; at the same time that no affinity 
in the series is deranged or interrupted. M. Cuvier, by 
not following up his own theory on the structure of the 
ear, places the ural and the hawk owl in the same 
genus ; thus confessing their similarity, and showing 
• Northern Zoology, it p. 92. 
