COMMON CHARACTERS. Above umber, or chocolate, brown, spotted with white (more or less uniform in the young); beneath white with longitudinal stripes of reddish-brown (adult), or ochraceous without markings (young). =A.= Nostril sunken, elongate-oval, obliquely vertical, opening laterally; cere not inflated. Tail considerably more than half the wing. Bill yellow. 1. =N. tengmalmi.= Wing, 7.20; tail, 4.50; culmen, .60; tarsus, 1.00; middle toe, .67 (average). Legs white, almost, or quite, unspotted; lower tail-coverts with narrow shaft-streaks of brown. (Light tints generally predominating.) _Hab._ Northern portions of Palæarctic Realm … var. _tengmalmi_.[23] Legs ochraceous, thickly spotted with brown; lower tail-coverts with broad medial stripes of brown. (Dark tints generally predominating.) _Hab._ Northern portions of Nearctic Realm … var. _richardsoni_. =B.= Nostril prominent, nearly circular, opening anteriorly; cere somewhat inflated. Tail scarcely more than half the wing. Bill black. 2. =N. acadica.= Wing, 5.25 to 5.80; tail, 2.60 to 3.00; culmen, .50; tarsus, .80; middle toe, .60. _Juv._ Face dark brown; forehead and crown brown; occiput brown; eyebrows and sides of chin white; throat and breast umber-brown. (= “_albifrons_,” Shaw = “_kirtlandi_,” HOY.) _Hab._ Cold temperate portions of Nearctic Realm. 3. =N. harrisi.=[24] Wing, 5.80; tail, 3.00; culmen, .50; tarsus, 1.00; middle toe, .80. _Juv._ (?) Face and forehead and anterior half of crown and whole nape ochraceous; posterior half of crown and occiput black; eyebrows and sides of chin ochraceous; throat and breast ochraceous. A narrow belt of black spots in ruff across throat. _Hab._ South America? Nyctale tengmalmi, var. richardsoni, BONAP. AMERICAN SPARROW OWL; RICHARDSON’S OWL. _Nyctale richardsoni_, BONAP. List. E. & N. A. Birds, p. 7, 1838; Consp. Av. p. 54, 1850.—GRAY, Gen. B. fol. sp. 2, 1844.—CASS. Birds Cal. & Tex. p. 185, 1854; Birds N. Am. 1858, p. 57.—KAUP, Monog. Strig. Cont. Orn. 1852, p. 105 (sub. _tengmalmi_).—IB. Tr. Zoöl. Soc. IV, 1859, 208.—STRICKL. Orn. Syn. I, 176, 1865.—MAYNARD, Birds Eastern Mass. 1870, 133.—GRAY, Hand List, I, 51, 1869. _Strix tengmalmi_, RICH. & SWAINS. F. B. A. II, 94, pl. xxxii, 1831.—AUD. Birds Am. pl. ccclxxx, 1831; Orn. Biog. IV, 599, 1831.—PEAB. Birds Mass. p. 91, 1841. _Nyctale tengmalmi_, DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Chicago Acad. I, 1869, 273. _Nyctale tengmalmi_, var. _richardsoni_, RIDGWAY, Am. Nat. VI, May, 1872, 285.—COUES, Key, 1872, 206.