lc'87.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 307 



^liJ-'i.) Ardeola leucoptera (Bodd. )• 

 Eastern Poucl Heron. 

 1783. — Cancromu Zewcojjfera Boddaert, Tabl. PI. Eul., p. 54 (nee A. leucoptera Jerdox 



qute A. (/rayii).—Ardea I. Schlegel, Mus. P. B., Arcle;e, p. 32.— Hume, 



Stray Featb., VIII, 1879, p. IGl. 

 1788. — Ardeamalaccensis Gmelin, S. N., I, ii, p. 043. 

 1855. — Bitjyhiia hacchus Bonaparte, Consp. Av., II, p. 127. 

 1860.— Ardeola 2}rasinosceIes SwixnoE, Ibis, 1860, p. 64.— /d., ihid., 1861, p. 52.— /c?., 



ihid., 1833, p. 421. — Seebohm, Ibis, 1884, p. 35. — Blakist., Amend. List B. 



Jap., p. 41 (1884). 

 1S61.— Ardeola sjyeciosa Sclatkr, Ibis, 18G1, p. 52, foot-note (nee Horsf.). 

 I87i.— Ardeola 2)rasi)tosceHs Hume, Stray Feath., II, p. 483. 

 ISSO.—Rerodias ? Blakist. & Pryer, Tr. As. Soc. Jap., VIII, 1880, p. 200. 



The right of the i)resent species to a phice iu the Japanese avifauna 

 rests solely ou a single specimen, iu young plumage, obtained by Cap- 

 tain Blakiston at Hakodate, October 12, 1879, and now in the U. S. 

 Xatioual Museum (Xo. 95977). To Japanese ornithologists a detailed 

 description of this interesting specimen may be quite welcome. 



Jun. ( U. S. Xat. 2lus. No. 95977; Hakodate, October 12, 1879; coll. Thos. Blakiston).— 

 Upper side of head black, each feather with a sharply defined and narrow streak of 

 pale buff" along the middle for its entire length ; hind neck of a pale sepia with sim- 

 ilar but broader and more ill-defined buffy streaks ; interscapilium and scapulars 

 rather dark sepia, the latter slightly washed with russet and indistinctly streaked 

 with pale buff; lower back, uropygium and upper tail-coverts pure white ; chin and 

 throat white, unspotted ; sides of head and neck and front of neck of a pale buff', be- 

 coming nearly pure white in the middle line of the latter, each feather striped with a 

 snbmarginal longitudinal spot or stripe of blackish brown iu each web, rest of under 

 surface pure white, except a bunch of feathers ou each side of breast, which are of a 

 tint slightly paler than the interscapilium, with a narrow shaft-stripe of a pale buft'; 

 wings white, the wing-coverts slightly suffused with buff and shaded with drab iu 

 the outer webs; primaries white, the outer ones with distinctly black shafts, the two 

 outermost, besides, having the tips drab colored for a distance of 25™™ and 15™", re- 

 spectively, the entire outer web being similar, but fading into dirty white towards 

 the base ; the four primaries following have a small mark of the same color near the 

 extreme tip ; secondaries white, the three innermost ones brownish drab, and the one 

 next to them shaded with the same color near the tip ; tail-feathers white, faintly 

 shaded with dusky towards the tips, giving them a dirty appearance. Upper man- 

 dible and tip of lower mandible "dark horn color," rest of under mandible "yellow- 

 ish green " ; legs " yellowish green " (Blakiston). 



Total length, 483™™ (Blakiston). Wing, 193™™ ; tail-feathers, 71™™ ; exposed cul- 

 men, 60™™ ; tarsus, 59™™ ; middle toe with claw, 58™™. 



No occipital crest ; feathers of the lower neck elongated, but not particularly nar- 

 row. Second primary longest, third slightly shorter ; first between third and fourth, 

 the first four ones forming the tip ; inner secondaries reaching slightly beyond the 

 longest primaries. 



Mr. Seebohm has identified this specimen as Ardeola j)rasinosceles 

 of Swinhoe. As remarked above, however, the immature plumages of 

 the species of this genus are practically indistinguishable as far as our 

 present knowledge goes, and I think that all that can be said with ab- 

 solute certainty is that the present specimen belongs to this group of 

 Herons. The probability is that it belongs to the Chinese species, being 

 apparently only a straggler to the northern island of Japan. As it 



