255 
on Dr. Jerdon’s ‘Birds of India.’ 
in his remarks on the fauna of Barrackpore, near Calcutta 
(Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1854, xiii. p. 366)*. 
74. Ephialtes bakkamcena (Pennant) ; Otus scops japonicus, 
Schlegel (Faun. Japon. Aves, tab. ix.); Scops zorca asiatica , 
Idem, Mus. P.-B. Oti, p. 30. 
Of this small Indian Scops-Owl the Calcutta Museum can 
show a very complete gradation, from the grey Scops pennatus to 
the bright chestnut or ferruginous S. sunia of Hodgson; or, if 
one semi-link in the chain be wanting, it is supplied by an 
Indian specimen referred to the European Scops-Owl by Mr. F. 
Moore. The specific identity of S. pennatus and S. sunia is cer¬ 
tain, and they cannot even be admitted as different races; yet 
Mr. G. B. Gray (in his B. M. Cat. of Birds of Nepal, 2nd edit., 
1863) adopts S. sunia for the rufous bird, while the grey bird (with 
S. malayensis , A. Hay, and S. spilocephalus , nobis, as synonyms) 
he refers to the European E. scops. Mr. F. Moore makes the 
same confusion. I am decidedly of opiuion, as I have before 
stated (Ibis, 1863, p. 27), that the proper name for the 
Indian bird (whether grey or rufous) is E. bakkamcena (Pennant). 
It is the only Scops-Owl which I know of as an inhabitant 
of Lower Bengal; and I have occasionally obtained specimens 
in a curious way : they would lodge by day within the moveable 
iC leaves” of a jilmil (or ({ jalousie ”), in which singular retreat 
I have captured them. I have also known Mus flavescens to 
resort by day (with the vain notion of concealing itself) to the 
same very insufficient hiding-place. Of course the jilmils 
being a little open, to permit of their ensconcing themselves, the 
animals intercept the light from without, and are so discovered. 
The Indian (or more probably Chinese) E. gymnopodus , Gray, 
is surely no other than E. bakkamcena ( vide Ibis, 1863, p. 27) ; 
but the Malacca race ( S . malayensis , A. Hay) seems to be some¬ 
what different, and I have not found it to vary in shade of 
hue; while in India the rufous specimens are certainly more 
common than the grey; I even think, considerably so. 
* [Mr. J. H. Gurney agrees with Mr. Blyth in considering Ketupa 
Jlavipes of North-eastern India distinct from K. javanensis of the Malay 
Archipelago, as, though the colouring of the two is similar, the former 
is fully a third larger than the latter.— Ed.] 
