| OCR Text |
Show 1878.] ORNITHOLOGY OF THE PHILIPPINES. 941 Sides of face bright pure unmarked rufous. Lengthened stiff plumes springing from base of maxilla rufous mixed with tawny, and many with dark-brown shafts and tipped with dark brown. Space above front of eyes, uniting on forehead and extending back over the eyes, pale tawny rufous. Crown and occiput dark rufous, many of the feathers with a dark brown broad mesial stripe. Nape and sides of neck pure rufous. Lengthened ear-tufts the same, some with very narrow brown mesial linear markings near their apices. Plumes bordering the facial disk albescent tawny; some almost pure white, tipped with dark brown. Chin and upper throat pale tawny rufous. Middle of throat white. Breast and remainder of lower surface pure rufous, more dilute on lengthened tibial plumes and under tail-coverts. A few pectoral plumes, with dark-brown large terminal drops. Many abdominal plumes, with dark-brown elongated central stripes. Back rufous, minutely freckled with brown, each feather with a bold, irregular, dark-brown central stripe. Scapulars like the back, but some of the shorter and outer albescent tawny on outer webs. The dark brown central marks are so arranged that the back, together with the scapulars, appears to have three parallel dark-brown stripes running down it. Uropygium and upper tail-coverts rufous-brown, with darker shafts. Rectrices brown, minutely freckled with pale rufous, and with eight or nine narrow pale rufous cross bands. Minor and median wing-coverts brown, freckled with rufous, and each with a dark narrow central brown line. Major coverts brown on inner web, freckled with rufous on outer. Quills brown, alternately banded with freckled brown and pale rufous. Tertiaries pure rufous, with traces of dark brown along the shafts. Carpal edge white; wing-lining yellowish white ; some of the under carpal coverts rufous. Thigh and tarsal coverts pale rufous and tawny white. Mr. J. H . Gurney writes to me :- "The Pseudoptynx is certainly distinct from'P. philippinensis, and, so far as I know, is undescribed. Besides its very much smaller size, it is very much more rufous below, and of a much darker rufous above; and the dark central marks of the mantle are altogether of a different character, and very much less coarse than those in P. philippinensis. As to the difference of size, we have two specimens of P. philippinensis here ; and the comparison between their dimensions and those of the Zamboanga bird is as follows :- Culmen Wing. Tarsus. Middle without toe. cere. in. in. in. in. " P. philippinensis, l^o. 1. . 15*5 2*4 1*6 1*4 , No. 2.. imperfect 2*5 1.5 1*5 "P.gurneyi 9*3 1'8 1*4 1*1." The dimensions of the type in the British Museum given by Mr. Sharpe (Cat. ii. p. 43) also much exceed those of the Zamboanga bird. I name this fine Owl after Mr. Gurney, to whom for many years |
