Plate CLXXI. Male and Female.
Feathers margining the operculum with the shaft and webs undeveloped.
Bill pale greyish-yellow; claws and scales brownish-yellow. General
colour of upper parts greyish-brown, with light yellowish-red
interspersed, produced by very minute mottling; each feather having
toward the end a central streak of deep brown, terminated by a small
oblong greyish-white spot; wings similarly coloured; secondary coverts
and outer edges of primary coverts with a large proportion of light
brownish-red; quills and tail transversely barred with brown; lower
parts pale brownish-red, fading anteriorly into white, each feather
having a small dark brown spot at the tip.
Closely allied to _Strix flammea_, but larger, and differing somewhat
in colour, being generally darker, with the ruff red. A character by
which they may always be distinguished is found in the operculum, the
feathers margining which are in the present species reduced to their
tubes, the shafts and filaments being wanting, whereas in the European
species each tube bears a very slender shaft, about half an inch long,
and furnished with about half a dozen filaments on each side.
_Male_, 17, 42. _Female_, 18, 46.
Southern States. Breeds from Texas to North Carolina. Never seen in
the interior, or to the north. Rather common.
White or Barn Owl, Strix flammea, Wils. Amer. Orn. v. vi. p.
57.
Strix flammea, Bonap. Synops. p. 38.
White or Barn Owl, Strix flammea, Nutt. Man. v. i. p. 139.
Barn Owl, Strix flammea, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. ii. p. 403: v. v.
p. 388.
GENUS IV. SYRNIUM, Cuv. HOOTING-OWL.
Bill short, stout, broad at the base; upper mandible with its dorsal
outline convex to the end of the cere, then curved, the sides sloping
and nearly flat, the tip compressed, decurved, acute; lower mandible
small, with the dorsal line convex, the tip narrow, the edges decurved
toward the end. Nostrils large, elliptical. Conch of the ear of medium
size, and furnished with an anterior semicircular operculum, beset
with slender feathers. Legs rather short; tarsi very short, and with
the toes feathered. Claws slightly curved, long, slender, compressed,
acuminate. Plumage very soft and downy; facial disks complete. Wings
very large, much rounded, the outer quill with the tips of the
filaments separated and recurved, as are those of the terminal portion
of the next; the outer six with the inner webs sinuate. Tail broad,
rounded.
35. 1. Syrnium cinereum, Linn. Great Cinereous Hooting-Owl.--Cinereous
Owl.
Plate CCCLI. Female.
Upper parts greyish-brown, variegated with greyish-white in irregular
undulated markings; the feathers on the upper part of the head with
two transverse white spots on each web; the smaller wing-coverts of a
darker brown, and less mottled than the back; the outer scapulars with
more white on their outer webs; primaries blackish-brown toward the
end, in the rest of their extent marked with a few broad light grey
oblique bands, dotted and undulated with darker; tail similarly
barred; ruff-feathers white toward the end, dark brown in the centre;
disks on their inner sides grey, with black tips, in the rest of their
extent greyish-white, with six bars of blackish-brown very regularly
disposed in a concentric manner; lower parts greyish-brown, variegated
with greyish and yellowish-white; feet barred with the same.
_Female_, 30-1/2, 48-1/2.
From Massachusetts on the east, and Columbia River on the west,
northward. Migratory.
Great Grey or Cinereous Owl, Strix cinerea, Nutt. Man. v. i.
p. 128.
Cinereous Owl, Strix cinerea, Swain. & Rich. F. Bor. Amer. v.
ii. p. 77.
Great Cinereous Owl, Strix cinerea, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. iv. p.
364.