Fam.—STRIGIDÆ. (The Owls.)
DUSKY EARED-OWL.[5]
Ephialtes grammicus.—Mihi.
[5] Length 14 inches, expanse 31, tail 4⁶⁄₁₀, flexure 9¼, rictus 1⁴⁄₁₀, tarsus 2, middle toe 1¹⁄₁₀, claw ⁷⁄₁₀.
Irides hazel; pupils very large, blue; beak pale blue-grey; feet dull lead colour; claws horny grey; cere blackish-grey. General plumage above dusky brown, becoming on the head and under parts, umber: each feather marked with a medial band of blackish hue, and several undulated transverse bars of the same. Egrets of about ten feathers, forming conical horns about 1 inch high, giving the countenance a great resemblance to that of a cat. Facial feathers unwebbed, pale umber; those of inner angle of eye, setaceous, black; operculum edged with black; scaly, sub-aural feathers pale fawn-colour, with arrowy centres of black; the outermost rows also mottled with black at the tip; these feathers meet under the chin in a ruff. Feathers of back, rump, tail, scapulars, and wing-coverts, minutely pencilled with blackish; shoulders deepening into almost black; primary greater coverts very dark. Quills and tail pale brown, with broad transverse bars, and minute pencillings of black, confused on the tertials. Wings short, rounded, hollow; third, fourth, fifth, sixth quills subequal. Breast bright umber, with transverse wavy mottlings, and a dash of dark brown down each feather. Belly, thighs, and vent, plain fawn-colour; the feathers downy, filamentous. Under wing-coverts yellowish-brown, a little mottled, the greater broadly tipped with black. Quills beneath, basal half pale-yellowish, apical half nearly as above. Whole tarsus feathered.
Intestinal canal 17 inches long; 2 cœca, distant 2 inches from the cloaca, 2½ inches long, slender at their base, dilating into sacs, thin, and full of dark liquid.
I have not been able to find any published description of this well-marked Owl. In the MSS. of Dr. Robinson,[6] however, there is a very elaborate description of the species, drawn up from an adult male, but agreeing with mine, which is from a female; save that he applies the term cinnamon, to the parts which I designate as umber. Three individuals, all females, have at separate times come into my hands, two of which were immature, as manifested by the downiness of the plumage. One of these was brought me on the 31st of March by a man who obtained it on Bluefields Mountain. He was engaged in felling a tree, in which the bird was; being disturbed it flew to another at a short distance, when it was struck down with a stick. The time was about noon. The person informed me that he had seen the bird there before, in company with another, which he supposed to be its mate. The stomach of this specimen, a large muscular sac, was filled with an immense quantity of slender bones, which appeared to be those of Anoles, as I discovered by the iguaniform teeth of at least five sets of jaws, of various sizes. They were enveloped in a quantity of fetid, black fluid. There were also the remains of beetles, and of orthopterous insects.
[6] Dr. Anthony Robinson, a surgeon practising in Jamaica about the middle of the last century, accumulated a very large mass of valuable information on the Zoology and Botany of the island, which is contained in five folio MS. volumes, in the possession of the Jamaica Society at Kingston. The specific descriptions, admeasurements, and details of colouring are executed with an elaborate accuracy worthy of a period of science far advanced of that in which he lived. Accompanying the MSS. are several volumes of carefully executed drawings, mostly coloured. To these volumes I have been indebted, as the reader will find, for many valuable notes, which I thus acknowledge with gratitude.
Of another, the adult from which my description was taken, struck down while sitting on a mango tree at Tait-Shafton, on the morning of April 6th,—the stomach was stuffed with the hair and bones of a portion of a rat, and the legs of a large spider; a Lycosa, as I believe—certainly a ground spider. Most of the eggs in the ovary were minute, though some were as large as mustard-seed; by which I gathered that the period of incubation was yet distant, though the spring was so far advanced.