SYRNIUM INDRANI 
(THE BROWN WOOD OWL) 
ADULT MALE AND FEMALE 
Length to front of cere 17 to 18 Inches; oulmen from aere 1 to 1.1; wing 
11.75 to 13.5 (average of seven examples 12.75); tall 6.5 to 7.5; tarsus 2 
to 2.3; outer anterior toe 1.4 to 1.6; Its olaw (straight) .9; height of 
bill at oere .56. 
DISTRIBUTION 
The Brown Wood Owl Is distributed over the whole of Ceylon, Inhabiting 
the low country of both the North and South of the Island, as well as the 
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forests of the hill zone up to the altitude of the Newera Ellia plateau. 
In the Kandyan Province it is pretty generally found throughout all the cof¬ 
fee districts and is not at all uncommon in the neighbourhood of Kandy. 
In the upper rbglon I have met with it at Kandapolla, and in the British Mu¬ 
seum there are specimens from Newera Ellia. I have met with it close to 
Trincomalie and others have procured it in various parts of the Vanni. In 
the Colombo district it has been shot as near to Colombo as Kaesbawa, and in 
the country further South between the Kaluganga and Dondra,Head it is tole¬ 
rably common. Between Kalutara and Agalawatta, in a comparatively maritime 
part of the country I have heard several of these owls on a single evening 
hooting within a short distance of each other. 
HABITS 
This fine Owl, which has received the ill-omened name of (Devil Bird), on 
account of the dire noises which the natives of the island have always as¬ 
cribed to‘it, frequents shady forest groves, woods of moderate extent, and 
portions of heavy jungle, near clearings and open places. I have met with 
it half a dozen times without being able to procure it, so sharp sighted is 
i t by day; it was on several occasions being most thoroughly mobbed by the 
jungle Drongos, (Buohanga longlcaudata) in company with a host of Bulbuls, 
who were pursuing it from tree to tree with a chattering incessant enough to 
bewilder a wiser bird than even an owl! On another occasion I witnessed 
its persecution in a forest near Ambepusse, by two or three pairs of Racket 
Tailed Drongos (Dlssemurus Lophorhlnus); so that the 'Devil Bird 8 , notwitn- 
standing its redoubtable sobriquet, does not appear to be much respected oy 
the King Crows at any rate! 
There is no bird in Ceylon to which so much interest attaches Doth among 
the European and indigenous population as the present. If the subject of 
