AMERICAN BITTERN. 419 



twenty-two. The claws are long, slender, compressed, taper- 

 ing, slightly arched ; that of the hind toe much larger and 

 more curved ; the inner edge of the third pectinate, with 

 about twenty-four teeth. 



The plumage is full, soft, loose, and blended ; the feathers 

 oblong or ovate ; those of the head and nape oblong and 

 elongated ; of the sides and lower part of the neck also much 

 elongated, and on the former directed obliquely backwards, 

 so as to cover the hind neck, which is bare in its whole 

 length ; the scapulars oblong and rounded. The wings are 

 large, broad, convex, of twenty-six quills, of which the pri- 

 maries are broad and rounded, except the first, which is 

 pointed ; the third longest, the second scarcely shorter, and 

 but slightly exceeding the first ; the secondaries very broad 

 and rounded, the inner elongated so as to be about the same 

 length as the outer primaries when the wing is closed. The 

 tail is very short, nearly even, of ten soft feathers. 



The bill is greenish-yellow, with the ridge of the upper 

 mandible brownish-black toward the end, but paler at the 

 base ; the bare spaces on the head brownish-yellow ; the 

 irides reddish yellow ; the feet dull yellowish-green ; the 

 claws brown. The upper part of the head and occiput are 

 greyish-brown. A streak of pale buff passes over the eye to 

 behind the ear ; a dusky band extends from behind the eye ; 

 the cheek and an oblique band on the neck are light brownish- 

 yellow ; a dusky band from the base of the lower mandible 

 passes under the cheek, and is continued into a black band, 

 which passes along the side of the neck. The fore part of 

 the neck is yellowish-white, the throat with a medial longi- 

 tudinal line of yellowish-brown spots ; on the rest of the neck 

 each feather has an elongated yellowish-brown medial stripe 

 edged with darker brown ; the lower parts of the body dull 

 yellowish-white, each feather with a medial brown streak ; 

 the abdomen and lower tail-coverts uniform dull buff. The 

 upper parts are yellowish-brown, variegated with dark brown 

 and reddish, the margins of the feathers undulatingly and 

 transversely barred and dotted. The wing-coverts dull red- 

 dish-yellow, finely undulated with dusky, the alula, primary 

 coverts, and quills, deep bluish-grey, with their tip barred 



