FAMILY ARDEIDAE 



107 



Description. — Length 610 to 760 mm. Adult, head, neck, and up- 

 per breast chestnut brown, narrowly banded with black, except on 

 the crown ; f oreneck and breast streaked with white ; lower breast and 

 abdomen dull cinnamon ; back and wings greenish black, barred and 

 dotted finely with cinnamon. 



Immature, bright cinnamon-buff, white on the abdomen and under 

 tail coverts, barred heavily with black; tail black, barred narrowly 

 with white. 



Fig. 17. — Head of banded tiger-bittern, garza tigre rayada, Tigrisoma lincatiim 

 lineatum, with a line of feathers down the throat, which is bare at the sides. 



Measurements. — Males (12 specimens, from Panama and Colom- 

 bia), wing 276-315 (294.4), tail 101-118 (110.5), culmen from base 

 93.3-103.7 (98.9), tarsus 93.0-105.5 (99.4) mm. 



Females (9 specimens, from Panama, Colombia and Venezuela), 

 wing 270-305 (291.3), tail 99.5-115.7 (111.0), culmen from base 88.0- 

 98.3 (92.3), tarsus 92.1-106.5 (96.7) mm. 



Resident. Found in small numbers in forested areas, on the Carib- 

 bean slope from Bocas del Toro to San Bias ; and on the Pacific side 

 in Darien in the Tuira-Chucunaque Valley (Laguna de Pita; above 

 Yavisa; El Real) where it ranges upward on the slopes of Cerro 

 Pirri to 550 meters (Cana) . 



