118 Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, fyc. 
I have at different times referred to the Stria maculosa, Vieillot, 
vel Str. africana, Temm. (PI. Col. 50), which figure I have not now 
the advantage of consulting. Lesson classed this bird in Otus, in 
which he is followed by G. R. Gray in his ‘British Museum Cata¬ 
logue of Raptorial Birds 3 (1848), while Kaup assigns it to Bubo. 
The form belongs neither to one nor to the other; but a name 
will probably be found for it in the ‘ Synopsis Avium 3 of the late 
Prince of Canino *. In the size of the auditory orifices it accords 
rather with Bubo. The two species bear much the same rela¬ 
tionship to each other in appearance that Syrnium aluco of 
Europe and N. Africa does to S. nivicolum of the Himalaya ; but 
the difference is greater, inasmuch as the species from S. Africa 
has a considerably longer shank than that from E. Africa. 
“The East-African bird is perhaps the Otus madagascariensis of 
Sir A. Smith (Catal. of S. African Museum), a description of 
which I have not seen; but it is more probably new and unde¬ 
scribed. It is the Bubo (?) africanus apud nos, from Somali Land, 
procured by Capt. Speke, and described in J. A. S. xxiv. p. 298 
(1855), where the provisional name spekii is suggested for itf. 
“ The other, from South Africa, is clearly the Strix maculosa 
of Vieillot or Strix africana of Temminck, which, as a sufficiently 
well-known species, I need not describe. It is larger than the 
preceding, with a proportionally longer shank, and bears, as I 
have said, a considerable resemblance in the colouring of its 
plumage to the Himalayan Syrnium nivicolum. 
“ Already I have a new Indian Raptorial to add to my cata¬ 
logue —Hcematornis elgini, Tytler, nearly allied to H. cheela, 
but of smaller size and much darker colouring, and with 
the occipital feathers less elongated; being further strongly 
distinguished by the markings of its great alar and caudal 
feathers. Instead of the broad pale band crossing the tail-fea¬ 
thers of H. cheela, the new species has a series of three narrow 
pale caudal bands,—the last subterminal, only half an inch 
broad, beyond which the black tail-tip is 1 ^ in. Perhaps in the 
* The term Nisuella is used for this Section by Bp., Rev. Zool. 1854, 
p. 542 .—Ed. 
f It is probably Bubo dillonii, Des Murs, Lefebvre’s Voyage en Abys- 
sinie, Zool. p. 73, pi. 3.—Ed. 
