Systematic Position of the Genus Ciccaba Wagler

Abstract

DUmNG the preparation of the manuscript covering the Strlgiformes for the next (fourth) volume of my 'Checklist,' some delay has ensued by reason of the large amount of compilation and the very little original research during the last fifty or seventy-five years on this interesting and difiieult group of birds. It has been necessary to take an entirely fresh start; to see what generic characters of value could be used in place of the greatly over-valued characters of featbering on toes and tarsi; to examine the ear structure of all the recognized genera and of practically all the species in an effort to cheek up their systematic position by means of the very valuable but generally disregarded external ear characters. Naturally many instances have turned up of species in the wrong genus and even of genera in wrong subfamilies. Since the present paper deals with the result of my studies of the genera Ciccaba and Strix, which, as will presently be shown, belong in different subfamilies it may be well to give a brief review of the subfamily concepts with references to pertinent literature. Considering the Barn Owls as constituting a distinct family, Tytonidae, we find the true owls, Strigidae, made up of two subfamilies, Buboninae and Striginae, separated on the basis of the structure of the external ear. In the second volume of the 'Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,' 1875, page 2, Sharpe defined the subfamilies as follows: