38 AKDEUJ* 



Adult female. — Similar ia plumnye tu ihn luidi; but shi/hth/ smiilli'r. 



Distribution. — North-western Australia, Northern Territory of South Austraha, Oueensiand, 

 New South Wales. 



/T^HE present species is widely distributed in favourable situations over the coastal and 

 J_ contiguous districts of North-western Australia, Northern Australia and the greater 

 portion of Eastern Australia, its ultra-Australian range extending to New Guinea, the Molucca 

 Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Fiji, the Society and Friendly Islands. In 

 the " Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum," the late E^r. R. B. Sharpe unites Bntovoidcs 

 macroi'hyncha, Gould, with the present species, and although the series of these birds in the 

 .\ustralian Museum is not large enough to fully confirm this view, it is sufficient to show that 

 there is a great variation between the adult breeding plumage, which agrees with Gould's B. 

 sta^natilis, and the non-breeding plumage, destitute of the long greenish-grey scapular plumes 

 of his B. iimcnirliyiiiltn. In addition to this there is considerable variation in the colour of the 

 under parts of B. stngiialiUs in the autumn and early winter plumage being more of an ashy-grey 

 slightly tinged with olive or dull ochreous-brown. Semi-adult specimens, too, have the upper 

 wing-coverts more broadly edged with ochreous-buff, and the inner lesser coverts with rufous- 

 bulT; there is only a faint indication of the white line down the centre of the throat, and the 

 blackish streaks are almost obsolete. Wing measurement of semi-adult female 7-5 inches. 



In North-western Australia Mr. Tom Carter noted it at Point Cloates, and the late Mr. T. 

 H. Bowyer-Bower obtained specimens at Derby. In the Northern Territory of South Australia 

 Gould remarks : — " Gilbert found a colony breeding on the small islets in Coral Bay, near the 

 entrance of the harbour of Port Essington. Their nests, about thirty in number, were built 

 both on the mangroves and on the branches of the Yellow-blossomed Hibiscus ; they were very 

 frail structures, consisting of a few small twigs placed across each other on the horizontal 

 branches, and none of them were more than six feet from the ground ; each contained either 

 two young birds or two eggs of a uniform very pale green." 



In New South Wales, in favourable situations, it is found along nearly the whole of the 

 coast line, but is more abundant on the northern coastal rivers of the State. In November, 

 1898, in company with Mr. George Savidge and his son, Mr. Clarence Savidge, it was noted 

 frequenting chiefly the thickly foliaged Bottle Brush-tree (Callistcnioit, sp.) on the Upper Clarence 

 River, being Hushed as we pulled our boat close to those trees fringing the river banks. Mr. 

 Clarence Savidge climbed to one of their nests built at the junction of a forked branch of a 

 Bottle Brush-tree, about fifteen feet above the water, which contained two fresh eggs. During 

 our river trip we saw several large Water Lizards (Pliysignatlius Icicuri) lying along the limbs 

 of the trees overhanging the water, or resting on a stump projecting a few feet above its surface. 

 Notwithstanding that Mr. Savidge shot these Lizards whenever opportunity offered, he informed 

 me that a large number of Little Mangrove Bittern's eggs, also those of se\eral species of water 

 fowl, were destroyed every year by these reptiles. Mr. Robert Grant, Taxidermist of the 

 Australian Museum, has also obtained this Bittern further south on the Bellinger River. It 

 still frequents the neighbourhood of Sydney, but in greatly diminished numbers, haunting chiefly 

 the mangroves of the Parramatta and George Rivers. At Dobroyde and Five Dock, in former 

 years, I occasionally flushed it while it was sheltering during the day in some densely 

 foliaged mangrove, localities also where Dr. E. P. Ramsay and Mr. John Ramsay had previously 

 secured its nests and eggs. i\Ir. W. Blacket informed me he had also found it breeding in 

 Casuariiue overhanging water at St. George Basin, near Milton, in the Illawarra District. In 

 response to a retjuest for a specimen for identification, he forwarded one to the Trustees, which 

 has been mounted and placed in the Exhibition Collection. This is the farthest locality south 

 I have known this species to occur, although there is a probability it yet may be found in 

 favourable situations nearer the southern boundary of the State. 



