THE BIRDS OF LIBERIA 689 
Bubo africanus cinerascens Guérin. Spotted Eagle-owl 
Bubo cinerascens Guérin, Rev. Zool., 1843, p. 321: Abyssinia. 
A large species with prominent ear-tufts, length about 17 inches; above mottled dark brown 
and yellowish brown with roundish white spots on occiput, neck, shoulders, and wing-coverts; 
facial disk dark brown and white mottled; below white on chin, the body with dark cross-banding. 
Sierra Leone to Abyssinia. 
The only record is of an adult female secured by Biittikofer at Grand Cape 
Mount, where it was kept in captivity by a native and later died. The eyes 
were said to be brown in life, not yellow as in lewcostictus. 
Bubo leucostictus (Hartlaub). Akun Eagle-owl 
Bubo leucostictus Hartlaub, Journ. f. Ornith., vol. 3, p. 354, 1855: Dabocrom, Gold Coast. 
A medium-sized owl with ear-tufts; above, a mottled dark brown and tawny, lighter below; 
outer border of scapulars white, forming a conspicuous white shoulder-stripe. West Africa, east 
to Belgian Congo. 
Bittikofer secured an adult female at Schieffelinsville as well as a male at 
Mill Town; and at the latter locality a nestling in down, February 2. Other- 
wise there appear to be no records, yet it was the only owl that we collected. 
Our first was the female of a pair, taken September 9, at Gbanga. The birds 
were in a patch of dense forest, high up among the branches, where the quick 
eye of my native guide spied them. The specimen showed the yellow iris as 
mentioned by Biittikofer, and its stomach was filled with the remains of large 
beetles. The skin of the belly was so thickened that the bird was very likely 
incubating at the time. The second specimen was shot by Dr. Linder who 
noticed the bird in the noon hours sitting at rest high up in the branches of a 
big silk-cotton tree near the village of Medina, October 30. It was possibly 
this same owl whose soft hollow hoo we occasionally heard at night. 
This owl is placed by some in the genus Huhua, which has much smaller 
feet than the typical Eagle-owls of the genus Bubo. 
Scotopelia peli peli Bonaparte. Pel’s Fishing Owl 
Scotopelia peli Bonaparte, Consp. Avium, vol. 1, p. 44, 1850: Ashanti. 
Length about 22 inches, tarsus unfeathered, no ear-tufts; above, wings and tail rusty bordered 
with black, head and neck feathers with black tips; face and lower side ochraceous, breast and belly 
streaked with dark brown. Feet pale grayish yellow, bill blackish. Senegal to Angola. 
The only claim of this owl to a place in the Liberian list rests on Biittikofer’s 
statement that he secured the head of a nestling, whose powerful black bill 
seemed to indicate its identity as of this species. 
Scotopelia bouvieri Sharpe. Bouvier’s Fishing Owl 
Scotopelia bouviert Sharpe, Ibis, ser. 3, vol. 5, p. 260, 1875: Lopé, Ogowe River, Gaboon. 
Smaller, length about 17.5 inches; above finely mottled dark brown and rusty, forehead 
whitish; sides paler, rusty streaked. West Africa. 
Biittikofer recorded a specimen taken by Stampfli on the Junk River as 
distinguishable from S. ussherz of the Gold Coast by the vermiculated upper 
