Liberia ^ 



and develops a long plume from the top of the head. A 

 somewhat similar bird is the slate-coloured Ardea ardesiaca. 

 Butorides atricapilla is one of the Green herons, with plumage 

 of glossy green, black, grey, and chestnut. These birds are 

 fairly common in Liberia, and assume the stiff attitude given 

 in my sketch. This bird is especially common in the mangrove 

 swamps, and although its habits are somewhat nocturnal it may 

 be seen in the daytime perched on the mangrove roots, close 

 to the waterside, immobile, as though it believed itself to be 

 invisible by its colours harmonising with its surroundings. 



Bcittikofer records having met with two species of ''bittern" 

 in Western Liberia, in the mangrove woods along Fisherman 

 Lake, but in this definition he was mistaken. There is 

 apparently no true bittern in West Africa, though there is 

 in South Africa. Buttikofer's " bitterns " were respectively 

 Ardeirallus sturml and l\rornis leucolopha. The first named is 

 a tiny little heron of slate-grey above and ochre-yellow or tawny 

 brown below, with a white throat and a streak ot bluish black 

 down the middle of the throat. This strange-looking little 

 bird will stand stiff, as if carved and painted, under the 

 traveller's gaze, it it believes its " colour scheme " to have 

 melted into the background of grey roots and brown sand. 

 'Tigrornis is a much larger bird, very handsomely coloured. 

 Above it is greenish black, striped or banded with reddish 

 yellow ; below the ground colour is bufi-', barred with black 

 and streaked longitudinally with white. There is a conspicuous 

 white crest growing from the nape of the neck. 



There are two nisht herons in Liberia, one the common 

 species, and the other Nycticorax leuconotus^ which is widely 

 spread over Africa. It has a reddish neck. The general colour 

 on the upper surface of the body is black, but the long plumes 

 that start from the shoulders, and a patch underneath them on 



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