Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 
340 
1921 .] 
from all the Owls, except the Barn. Owls, in having no 
intermediate down between the casting of the white down 
and the assumption of full plumage/'’ 
Incidentally, I may draw attention to other facts men¬ 
tioned in the same article on the breeding of the Scops Owl, 
which point out how widely the Scops differ from all other 
Owls. Incubation only lasts twenty-three to twenty-four 
days. The young, instead of remaining long in the nest and 
being tended by the parents for a long time afterwards, are 
just the reverse. Young hatched on 10 June left the nest 
strong perchers on 1 July, and by 10 July were strong fliers 
and independent. It will thus be seen that the young 
Scops is full grown, full fledged, and independent at thirty 
days old. All the other Owls are in the nest or, at any 
rate, dependent on their parents for at least three months. 
E. G. B. Meade-Waldo. 
Hever, Kent, 
6 February, 1921. 
The Status of Picus rubricollaris Baker. 
Sin,—In a letter dated January 7th, 1921, my colleague, 
Mr. C. Boden Kloss, has asked me to point out that the 
handsome Woodpecker described by Mr. Stuart Baker and 
figured in the last number of 4 The Ibis 5 as Picus rubri¬ 
collaris is wrongly attributed to Siam, the localities in which 
it was collected being, as a matter of fact, both in French 
Laos, on or near the lliver Mekong. 
Further, the new 44 species ” appears to be identical with, 
or extremely closely allied to, a bird figured and described 
by Oustalet twenty-two years ago as Gecinus rabieri (Bull. 
Mus. d’Hist. Nat. 1898, p. 12 ; id. Nouv. Arch, du Mus. (4) 
i. 1899, p. 255, pi. vii.) founded on two unsexed specimens, 
considered males, but evidently females; from Tonkin. 
I have myself compared Mr. Baker’s types with Oustalet’s 
figures and description, and have not the least doubt that 
Mr. Kloss is perfectly correct. The slight differences 
between the actual bird from the Mekong and tiie figure 
