284 Mr. T. Ayres on the Ornithology of Transvaal. 
Total length 20 inches, bill IJ, tarsus wing 15, tail 9j. 
Irides tawny yellow; bill and cere as in the male j tarsi and 
feet pale greenish yellow, with a dusky tinge. The crop 
contained the remains of a large rat. 
Female, immature, shot 11th June. Irides dusky brown. 
The crop contained the remains of a Snipe, probably a 
wounded bird. 
Phasmoptynx capensis (Smith). African Short-eared Owl. 
Female, shot 24th May. Irides hazel. 
Female, shot 2nd June. Irides dusky hazel-brown. 
284. Strix afpinis, Layard (ex Blyth). South-African 
Screech-Owl. 
Female, shot 23rd January. Total length 13 inches, bill 
(fully) If, tarsus 2f, wing 10|, tail 4|. Irides dark hazel; 
bill pale flesh-colour, clouded more or less about the com¬ 
missure ; cere pale chrome-yellow ; feet dusky. 
The Screech-Owl is not uncommon in the town of Pot- 
chefstroom. 
[The Screech-Owl of South Africa, though united by Mr. 
Sharpe, in his recent ^ Catalogue of the Striges,^ with Strix 
flammea, appears to me to be separable as a subspecies from 
the European race, from which it is distinguished (more or 
less conspicuously in different individuals) by the greater 
abundance and larger size of the dark spots on the entire 
under surface. 
In my edition of Andersson^s ^ Notes on the Birds of Damara 
Land,^ I applied to the South-African race the speciflc name 
of poensisj^ founded on a West-African specimen; but, 
according to the observations of Prof. Bocage Ornithologie 
d’Angola,^ vol. i. p. 63), some West-African specimens occur 
which do not differ from those of Europe; and it may there¬ 
fore be better to adopt for the South-African race the specific 
name of affinis/^ applied to it by Mr. Layard in the first 
edition of his work on the Birds of South Africa. 
The present specimen differs from ordinary South-African 
examples in the very grey colouring of the mantle, in the 
larger size of the black spots on the sides of the neck, and 
