STRIX NEWTONINOM. NOV.
- Strix sp. Newton and Gadow, Trans. Zool. Soc. XIII, p. 287 (1893).
Messrs. Newton and Gadow give the measurements of, and describe a pair of metatarsi procured with the remains described as Strix sauzieri, and state that they do not fit in with that species. For, as they are fully adult bones, it is impossible to attribute their much smaller size to youth. They then add a sentence of which this is the first part: "Unless we assume, what is unlikely, that the Island of Mauritius possessed two different species of Strix, we have to conclude that the short pair of metatarsals belonged to a small individual of Strix sauzieri, ——." Evidently Messrs. Gadow and Newton, when they wrote this, did not remember the fact that throughout a very large portion of the range of Strix flammea, its various geographical races are found side by side with another species of the group of Strix, namely, S. candida and S. capensis, popularly called "Grass owls"; these in nearly every case have the legs considerably longer than in the true Barn Owls (Strix flammea and its races).
Therefore I consider it not in the least unlikely that two species of Strix inhabited Mauritius, and that Strix sauzieri was the Mauritian representative of the "Grass Owls," while these two short metatarsals belonged to the representative of the "Barn Owls." I therefore have much pleasure in naming this form after the collector of these bones, the late Sir Edward Newton.
Length of tarso-metatarsi, 56 mm.
Habitat: Mauritius.
