Description.—Above orange-brown, marbled with ashy and white, and dotted with black spots with central white points; wings and tail crossed by four or five blackish bands; face silvery white, with a posterior and inferior border of orange-brown and black: beneath white, more or less suffused with tawny, except on the lower belly, and dotted with distinct rounded black spots; bill yellowish; tarsus feathered; toes slightly bristled; claws long and sharp: whole length 15·0 inches, wing 12·5, tail 5·0. Female similar.
Hab. Old and New Worlds.
This widely distributed species is found throughout South America; and in its habits and sepulchral voice, as well as in its pretty reddish buff, grey, and white plumage, is identical with the European bird. D’Orbigny expressed astonishment that this Owl, which is never seen in uninhabited places, invariably appears to keep company with man wherever a settlement is formed, even in the most lonely and isolated spots. Probably it is much more numerous than most people imagine, sheltering itself everywhere in caverns and hollow trees, so that it is always present, and ready to take early advantage of the commodious church-tower or other large building raised by man. On the level pampas, where there are no hills or suitable hiding-places, it is rarely seen: it is exclusively a town bird.
Nothing more need be said of the habits of a species so well known, and about which there is so much recorded in general works of Natural History.
[ Fam. XXXI. BUBONIDÆ, or OWLS.]
[287.] ASIO BRACHYOTUS (Forst.).
(SHORT-EARED OWL.)
Otus palustris, Darwin, Zool. Beagle, iii. p. 33. Otus brachyotus, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 116; Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 439 (Rosario); Hudson, P. Z. S. 1870, p. 800 (Buenos Ayres); Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 186 (Buenos Ayres), et 1878, p. 396 (Patagonia). Asio brachyotus, Gibson, Ibis, 1879, p. 423 (Buenos Ayres); White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 622 (Buenos Ayres); Withington, Ibis, 1888, p. 468 (Lomas de Zamora). Asio accipitrinus, Sharpe, Cat. B. ii. p. 234.
Description.—Above streaked and variegated with fulvous and blackish brown; face whitish, with a large central blotch of blackish round the eye; wings pale tawny white, with several irregular broad blackish cross bars; tail whitish, with four or five broad black cross bands: beneath as above, but much whiter on the belly, which is only slightly streaked, and without markings on the crissum and thighs; bill black; tarsi and toes densely feathered: whole length 15·0 inches, wing 13·0, tail 6·0. Female similar, but rather larger.
Hab. Old and New Worlds.