_Strix sp._ Newton and Gadow, Trans. Zool. Soc. XIII, p. 287 (1893).
Messrs. Newton and Gadow give the measurements of, and describe a pair of
metatarsi procured with the remains described as _Strix sauzieri_, and
state that they do not fit in with that species. For, as they are fully
adult bones, it is impossible to attribute their much smaller size to
youth. They then add a sentence of which this is the first part: "Unless we
assume, what is unlikely, that the Island of Mauritius possessed two
different species of _Strix_, we have to conclude that the short pair of
metatarsals belonged to a small individual of _Strix sauzieri_, ----."
Evidently Messrs. Gadow and Newton, when they wrote this, did not remember
the fact that throughout a very large portion of the range of _Strix
flammea_, its various geographical races are found side by side with
another species of the group of _Strix_, namely, _S. candida_ and _S.
capensis_, popularly called "_Grass owls_"; these in nearly every case have
the legs considerably longer than in the true _Barn Owls_ (_Strix flammea_
and its races).
Therefore I consider it not in the least unlikely that two species of
_Strix_ inhabited Mauritius, and that _Strix sauzieri_ was the Mauritian
representative of the "Grass Owls," while these two short metatarsals
belonged to the representative of the "Barn Owls." I therefore have much
pleasure in naming this form after the collector of these bones, the late
Sir Edward Newton.
Length of tarso-metatarsi, 56 mm.