Obs. This Owl is of frequent occurrence, especially in the winter season, throughout the Eastern States of the Union, and appears to prefer meadows and marshes along the course of rivers or other streams of water. We have met with it, too, occasionally in straggling bushes in fields remote from such localities. This bird has been almost universally considered identical with the bird known by the same name, which is found throughout Europe and Asia; but it is nearly or quite as distinct as some other American birds of this family recognised on all hands as separate species. On comparison of series of specimens of the two, it will be found that the American are larger, and for much the greater part darker colored, especially the females. The name _brachyotus_ is, however, applicable to the American species only, having been first applied by Forster to an American specimen in his “Account of the Birds sent from Hudson’s Bay, with observations relative to their Natural History,” in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, 1772. We have had no facilities for comparing the stages of plumage of the young of the American and European or Asiatic species, but have no doubt they will be found to present sufficient distinctive characters. We have omitted the many synonymes of the European bird, for reasons above intimated. _Otus galapagoensis_, Gould, is scarcely to be distinguished from our present bird. Admitting the genus _Brachyotus_, Gould, we think it very probable that the name of the present species ought to stand _Brachyotus galapagoensis_ (Gould). Very fine specimens of this Owl are contained in the large and highly interesting collection of birds made in Chili, by Lieut. Gilliss, of the United States Navy. It appears to inhabit the plains on the Pacific, and nearly all the specimens are of a deeper shade of fulvous than is usually met with in those of the North, though we have seen specimens of the latter precisely similar to them. III. SUB-FAMILY SYRNIINÆ. THE GREY OWLS. Head large, with very small and concealed ear-tufts, or entirely without; facial disc nearly complete; eyes rather small; wings rather short; tarsi and toes generally fully feathered. Size various. I. GENUS SYRNIUM. Savigny, Nat. Hist. Egypt, I. p. 112. (1809.) Size usually large; head large, without ear-tufts; facial disc nearly perfect; bill rather strong, wide at base, curved from its base; wings long, somewhat rounded, fourth and fifth quills longest; tail long, wide, rounded; legs moderately long, robust; tarsi and toes densely covered with short feathers; claws long, curved, very sharp. A genus containing fifteen to twenty species of various parts of the world, principally northern.