227. NINOX SPILONOTA Bourns and Worcester.
SPOTTED HAWK OWL.
- Ninox spilonotus Bourns and Worcester, Minnesota Acad. Nat. Sci. Occ. Papers (1894), 1, 8.
- Ninox spilonota Sharpe, Hand-List (1899), 1, 290; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 47.
Cebu (Bourns & Worcester, McGregor); Mindoro (Platen, Everett, Bourns & Worcester); Sibuyan (Bourns & Worcester, McGregor); Tablas (Bourns & Worcester).
“Sexes alike.—General color of upper surface fulvous-brown; feathers of head, nape, interscapulars, and wing-coverts spotted with light rufous-brown giving the parts in question a decidedly speckled appearance; rump fulvous-brown, upper tail-coverts faintly spotted with pale rufous-brown; tail nearly black with nine narrow transverse bands of light rufous-brown; quills like tail but spotted, instead of barred, with light rufous-brown; scapulars like back, some of them with large nearly white spots on outer webs; a few of greater series of wing-coverts also spotted with white on outer webs; chin and throat whitish, almost pure white in one specimen, in others light rufous-brown, the feathers always with black shaft-stripes; auriculars fulvous-brown somewhat mixed with light rufous-brown; sides of neck like head; breast, abdomen, flanks, thighs, under wing-coverts, and axillars rufous-brown, the depth of the color subject to great individual variation, many feathers of breast and abdomen with fulvous-brown spots and all with blackish bases; under surface of wing fulvous-brown. Inner webs of feathers, especially of secondaries, spotted and barred with light rufous-brown; a spot of white on bend of wing; tarsus feathered for rather more than half its length. Iris yellow; legs and feet pale yellow; bill black at tip, gray at base. Two females measure, 241 in length; culmen, 13; tarsus, 31; wing, 181; tail, 102.
“A single specimen of this species was secured in Cebu by Mr. Worcester in 1888. Its curious mottled back and under surface were suggestive of immaturity, and Dr. Steere thought it to be the young of some undescribed species. We have altogether too much material now to make such a theory tenable.” (Bourns and Worcester.)
A rusty brown male was taken in Sibuyan. Iris yellow; bill and legs pale dirty greenish; cere a little darker; nails gray, blackish at tips. Length, 285; wing, 210; tail, 114; culmen from base, 23; tarsus, 32.
A male from Cebu is in the light phase. Chin, throat, and forehead mostly white; rictal bristles with white bases; scapulars spotted with white; abdomen and flanks very largely white and with no fulvous nor rusty brown wash.