Face and throat greyish white; crown of the head and all the upper surface dark brown, tinged with purple; scapularies, secondaries and greater wing-coverts spotted with white; primaries alternately barred with dark and greyish brown, the light marks on the outer edges approaching to white; tail dark brown, transversely barred with six or seven lines of greyish white, the extreme tips of all the feathers terminating with the same; the whole of the under surface mottled brown and white, the latter occupying the outer edges of the feathers; tarsi clothed to the toes, and mottled brown and fawn-colour; irides bright yellow; cere yellowish olive; bill light yellowish horn-colour; toes long, yellow, and covered with fine hairs. The figure is about four-fifths of the natural size. [Illustration: ATHENE? STRENUA: _Gould_. _J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._ ] ATHENE STRENUA, _Gould_. Powerful Owl. _Athene strenua_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 142; and in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part III. With the exception of the Eagles, _Aquila fucosa_ and _Ichthyiaëtus leucogaster_, this is the most powerful of the Raptorial birds yet discovered in Australia. Its strength is prodigious, and woe to him who ventures to approach its clutch when wounded. So far as I have been able to ascertain, the habitat of the _Athene strenua_ is confined to New South Wales; at all events no examples occur in collections made in any other part of Australia. It is strictly an inhabitant of the brushes, particularly of those which stretch along the coast from Port Philip to Moreton Bay. I have also obtained it in the interior on the precipitous sides of the Liverpool range, which are known to the colonists by the name of the cedar brushes, where the silence of night is frequently broken by its hoarse loud mournful note, which more resembles the bleating of an ox than any other sound I can compare it to. During the day it reposes under the canopy of the thickest trees, from which however it is readily roused, when it glides down the gulleys with remarkable swiftness; the manner in which so large a bird threads the trees while flying with such velocity is indeed truly astonishing. Its food consists of birds and quadrupeds, of which the brushes furnish a plentiful supply. In the stomach of one I dissected in the Liverpool range were the remains of a bird and numerous green seed-like berries, resembling small peas; but whether they had formed the contents of the stomach of a bird or quadruped the Owl had devoured, or whether the large Owls of Australia, which certainly offer some difference in their structure from every other group of the family, live partly on berries and fruits, it would be interesting to know; a fact which can only be ascertained by residents in the country.