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in S. albifacies, though some of my specimens approach it almost completely, and the face is more rufescent. Professor Newton cautiously warned Sir Walter Buller, suggesting that S. albifacies might possibly have a red "phase," like Syrnium aluco, and this North Island specimen represented the latter. As for myself, I do not think that S. albifacies has two phases, as I have seen too many specimens, and found them to vary but little. I have now in my collection eight specimens from the South Island. On the other hand, I have not seen juvenile examples; but it is very likely that the rufous face of the North Island specimen is a character peculiar to the North Island form, which would then be a sub-species of S. albifacies from the South Island, and should be called S. albifacies rufifacies. The type from Wairapara is said to have been killed in the summer of 1868-9, and, since no further evidence of its existence has come forth, I presume that the North Island race of this owl must be extinct by this time.
