BOTAURUS. 183 



"Young hirds are much browner than the adults, and can immediately 

 be recognized by their more freckled appearance, the feathers of the upper 

 surface having ochraceous margins. The mottling of the rufous on the 

 neck is much as in the adult birds but there is more white and less rufous, 

 and the chest-feathers are much more broadly edged with white; the 

 breast is dusky brown as well as the sides of the body; the abdomen is 

 white; the sides of the face and ear-coverts are chestnut, with a little 

 streak of white at the base of the mandible. 



"Nestling. — Similar in color to the young bird described above, but 

 very much shaded with rufous, and having a great deal of rufous on the 

 sides of the face; the crown covered with down of 'an ocherous color, the 

 throat and chest very rufous." (Sharpe.) 



Genus BOTAUEUS Stephens, 1819. 



The genus Botaurus is distinguished by its large size, comparatively 

 short and stout bill and heavy legs; culmen much less than tarsus, the 

 latter less than middle toe with claw ; secondaries and scapulars nearly or 

 quite as long as primaries. 



153. BOTAURUS STELLARIS (Linnaeus). 



COMMON BITTEEN. 



Ardea stellaris Linn^us, Syst. Nat. ed. 10 (1758), 1, 144. 



Botaurus stellaris Shabpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1898), 26, 253; Hand- 

 List (1899), 1, 204; Blaxfokd, Fauna Brit. Ind. Bds. (1898), 4, 405, 

 fig. 99 (head); Gates, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1902), 2, 134; McGkegob. 

 Bur. Government Laboratories (1905), 34, 29; McGbegob and WoB- 

 CESTEE, Hand-List (1906). 36. 



Luzon {Babbitt) . Temperate Palaearctic region, northwestern India, Burma, 

 China. 



"Adult male. — Above tawny-yellow and black, the latter predominating 

 and occupying the center of the feathers, the sides of which are tawny- 

 buff, freckled and irregularly barred with black; lower back, rump, and 

 upper tail-covers pale tawny-buff, mottled with bars or cross-lines of 

 dusk)^ brown; marginal wing-coverts rufous, regularly barred across with 

 black; median and greater coverts tawTiy-buff, with irregular bars or 

 arrow-shaped markings of blackish brown, much less pronounced on the 

 greater coverts, all of which have a rufescent tinge near the base; alula, 

 primary-coverts, and quills blackish, barred with rufous, the bars some- 

 what broken up on the inner webs of the quills, which are also paler; 

 the inner secondaries like the scapulars, being tawny-buff on their edges 

 and mottled in a similar manner; tail-feathers tawny-buff, irregularly 

 mottled with black bars or cross-markings, more pronounced on the 

 middle of the feathers; crown of head uniform black, with a frill of 



