172 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



considered wholly unreliable, as is shown by the description given 

 above of the specimens in hand. For the present these are referred 

 to the typical subspecies. 



7. Nycticorax caledonicus (Gmelin). 

 Ardea caledonica Gmelin, Syst. nat., 1789, 1, pt. 2, p. 626. (New Caledonia). 



An adult female was taken at Uala in the Middle Carolines, 16 

 February, 1900. This bird is seemingly in fully adult plumage but 

 lacks the long white nuchal plumes found in this species when in full 

 nuptial dress. 



It is darker above than birds from New South Wales (A^. c. hilli 

 Mathews), Waigou, and New Guinea, and has the axillars and under 

 wing coverts heavily washed with buff-pink, a character lacking in the 

 few other specimens examined, though said to be found in some 

 Australian birds. A dark purplish wash on the back is especially 

 noticeable in this specimen when compared with others and the bill 

 seems thick and heavy. The measurements of this bird are as follows : 

 — wing 280 mm., tail 97 mm., tarsus 80 mm., exposed culmen 62 mm. 

 The length of culmen is uncertain as the bill seems to have sustained 

 some injury near the base of the culmen that has caused distorted 

 feathers to come farther forward on the forehead than usual. On the 

 right foot this specimen had lost all of the phalanges of the middle toe 

 save the basal one and the nail from the second toe, leaving only well- 

 healed stumps at the tips of these digits. 



Apparently the Caroline Island bird represents a form characterized 

 by dark coloration above, a pinkish wash on the under wing coverts, 

 and a thick rather short bill. The short bill serves to separate it from 

 N. c. crassirostris from the Bonin Islands, and the dark coloration 

 from A^. c. hilli Mathews from Australia. No material from New 

 Caledonia, the type-locality of caledonicus, is available, so that I find 

 myself unable to definitely name or differentiate the Caroline form. 



The bill in the present specimen, as in all others that have been 

 examined, has the basal portion of the mandible yellowish and the tip 

 of the mandible and the maxilla black. It is said that A^. caledonicus 

 at times has the entire bill black as in A'^. manillensis Vigors, but I have 

 seen none that exhibit this character. Mathews (Birds of Australia. 

 1914, 3, pt. 6, p. 460) says, in -his description of A^. c. hilli, that the 

 bill is black, and it is so figured in the plate that he gives of this 

 night heron. 



