Plate CCCCXXXII. Fig. 1. Male. Fig. 2. Female.
Feet rather long, slender; tarsus covered with short soft feathers, of
which the shafts only remain toward the lower part; toes short, their
upper surface covered with bristles or the shafts of feathers; tail
short, arched, narrow, slightly rounded. Bill greyish-yellow; claws
black. General colour of upper parts light yellowish-brown, or
umber-brown, spotted with white; the quills with triangular
reddish-white spots from the margins of both webs, there being five on
each web of the first; the tail similarly barred, there being on the
middle feathers four double spots, and the tips of all white. Face
greyish-white; throat and ruff white, succeeded by a mottled brown
band, beneath which is a patch of white; the rest of the lower parts
yellowish-white, with broad bars of light reddish-brown, which are
closer on the sides of the breast; abdomen, lower tail-coverts, and
legs without spots.
_Male_, 10, 24. _Female_, 11.
Prairies west of the Mississippi. Abundant.
Burrowing Owl, Strix cunicularia, Say, in Long's Exped. v. i.
p. 200.
Burrowing Owl, Strix cunicularia, Bonap. Amer. Orn. v. i. p.
68.
Burrowing Owl, Strix cunicularia, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. v. p.
264.
Burrowing Owl, Strix cunicularia, Nutt. Man. v. i. p. 118.