This is the largest owl of North America, except one, the Great Cinereous Owl (_Syrnium cinereum_) and, like several other species of large birds, retreats before the progress of the settlement of the country. Formerly abundant, it is now comparatively rare in the more thickly populated states, and appears almost entirely as a wanderer in winter. Specimens are not frequently seen so dark nor so large as represented in Mr. Audubon’s plate. II. GENUS SCOPS. Savigny, Nat. Hist. Egypt, I. p. 105. (1809.) EPHIALTES. Keyserling and Blasius, Wirbelth. Eur. p. 33. (1840.) Size, small; head, large, with conspicuous ear-tufts; facial disc, imperfect above the eyes; bill, short, curved, nearly covered by projecting feathers; wings, long; tail, short, and generally slightly curved inwards; tarsi, rather long, and more or less covered; toes, long, partially covered with hair-like feathers; claws, rather long, curved, strong. General form short and compact. A genus containing about twenty-five species of small Owls of all parts of the world, except Australia. 1. Scops asio. (Linn.) The Mottled Owl. The Red Owl. The Screech Owl. Strix asio. Linn. Syst. Nat., I. p. 132. (1766.) Strix nævia. Gm., Syst. Nat., I. p. 289. (1788.) Bubo striatus. Vieill., Ois d’Am. Sept., I. p. 54. (1807.) Catesby’s Carolina, I. pl. 7. Vieill., Ois. d’Am. Sept., I. pl. 21. Temm., Pl. Col. 80. Wilson, Am. Orn., pl. 19, fig. 1.; pl. 42, fig. 1. Aud., B. of Am., pl. 97. Oct. ed., I. pl. 40. Nat. Hist. N. Y., pl. 12, figs. 25, 26.