BURROWING OWL. 
73 
we cannot well understand why Vieillot did not thus exemplify so 
interesting a bird. Our figure will be the more acceptable to 
ornithologists, as it is the first which has been given of the Bur¬ 
rowing Owl: in the distance we have introduced a view of the 
Prairie Dog village. 
The peculiar sub-genus of this bird has not hitherto been deter¬ 
mined, owing to the neglect with which naturalists have treated 
the arrangement of extra-European Owls. Like all diurnal Owls, 
our bird belongs to the sub-genus JYoctua of Savigny, having small 
oval openings to the ears, which are destitute of operculum, the 
facial disk of slender feathers small and incomplete, and the outer 
edges of the primaries not recurved; but it differs from them in 
not having the tarsus and toes covered by long thick feathers. 
The Burrowing Owl is nine inches and a half long, and two 
feet in extent. The bill is horn colour, paler on the margin, and 
yellow on the ridges of both mandibles; the inferior mandible is 
strongly notched on each side: the capistrum before the eyes ter¬ 
minates in black rigid bristles, as long as the bill: the irides are 
bright yellow. The general colour of the plumage is a light burnt- 
umber, spotted with whitish, paler on the head and upper part of 
the neck; the lower part of the breast and belly are whitish, the 
feathers of the former being banded with brown: the inferior tail 
coverts are white immaculate. The wings are darker than the 
body, the feathers being much spotted and banded with whitish; 
the primaries are five or six banded, each band being more or less 
widely interrupted near the shaft, and margined with blackish, 
which colour predominates towards the tip; the extreme tip is 
dull whitish; the shafts are brown above, and white beneath: the 
exterior primary is finely serrated, and equal in length to the fifth, 
the second and fourth being hardly shorter than the third, which 
is the longest. The tail is very short, slightly rounded, having its 
feathers of the same colour as the primaries, and like them five or 
six banded, but more purely white at tip. The feet are dusky, 
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