This bird, eagle-like in its dimensions, and the largest of our Owls, is found throughout both Americas, though some authors, relying on certain trivial variations in size and colour, have separated the southern from the northern form, and called it _Bubo magellanicus_. In the Argentine Republic it is well known by its Indian name "Ñacurutú"; also in Paraguay according to Azara, who says:--"It pronounces its own name in tones which scare such as pass by night through the deep woods, which are its palaces." The habits of the Virginian Owl are too well known to need to be rewritten in this place: the ornithologists of North America have supplied several biographies of it, that by Audubon being specially familiar. 289. SCOPS BRASILIANUS (Gm.). (CHOLIBA OWL.) +Scops brasilianus+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 117; _White, P. Z. S._ 1883, p. 41 (Cordova); _Barrows, Auk_, 1884, p. 29 (Entrerios); _Sharpe, Cat. B._ ii. p. 108. _Description._--Above brown, vermiculated with darker brown, and spotted and streaked more or less distinctly with black; neck-collar lighter; wings dark brown, regularly barred across with sandy rufous; tail dark brown, with about ten regular cross bars of sandy rufous: beneath dirty white, washed with buff, densely crossed with narrow zigzag lines of blackish brown: whole length 9·5 inches, wing 6·2, tail 3·7. _Female_ similar, but rather larger. _Hab._ South America. Azara and d'Orbigny have described the habits of this Owl, which is common in Paraguay and in the Argentine State of Corrientes, the name for it in both countries being _Choliba_. It is a bird of the woods, strictly nocturnal, lives in pairs, and spends the day in a thick-foliaged tree, the male and female sitting close together. At night it comes a great deal about houses, where it diligently explores every corner in search of cockroaches and other vermin, and in this way commends itself to the country people, who esteem it highly, and often keep it tame in their homes. Its hoot, described as sounding like _tururú-tú-tú_, is not unpleasant to the ear, and is a familiar sound to all who traverse the woody paths by night. It breeds in deep woods, and lays three white eggs in a hollow tree without any nest. Barrows found it common in Corrientes along the wooded water-courses, and says it has a soft tremulous cry. He tells us there are two varieties of it in colour, red and grey, and gives _Caburé_ as the native name. 290. SPEOTYTO CUNICULARIA (Mol.). (BURROWING-OWL.)