Mr. R. Swinhoe on Formosan Ornithology. 423 



bird it is particularly common in the marshes near Amoy, China. 

 They are there seen^ numbers together, scattered on the tops of 

 the reeds and mangroves, each bird standing on a branch, often 

 on one leg, with head sunk between the shoulders, the bill only 

 moving as on a pivot, and describing a semicircle, as the bird 

 extends its vision. They are tame, and not easily disturbed. If 

 alarmed by loud cries, they flutter and drop quietly to the roots 

 of the reeds. When they are made with difiiculty to take wing, 

 they never fly far. I have generally found them at Amoy in 

 May, but could never ascertain where they bred, though the 

 young, in mottled and spotted Bittern-like plumage [A. lepida, 

 Horsf.), were common enough a little later in the year. This 

 species is very similar to Ardetta minuta of Europe, of which it 

 is the representative form in Asia. 



164. Nycticorax griseus (L.). 



I fully expected to find in Formosa the Red-backed Night- 

 Heron of the Philippines, but was annoyed to discover that it 

 was still our European friend that prevailed. This bird was 

 building abundantly in the fine old banyans in the city of Tai- 

 wanfoo ; and as my hunters shot them without mercy, I had 

 opportunities of examining them in all three plumages — the 

 spotted first-year, the light grey second-year, and the adult, 

 with all manner of transitional stages. The iris is at first 

 greenish yellow, gradually changes to brownish straw-yellow in 

 the second plumage, and then deepens and changes to the clear 

 pink vermilion of the mature bird. The bill of the adult is 

 black, with yellowish edges to basal two-thirds of gonys. Lore at 

 base of bill grey, greenish near and round the eye. Pupil hori- 

 zontally ovate, expands in the dark and at death to nearly full 

 extent of the eye, which projects much. The legs of immature 

 birds are green ; in the second plumage they are strongly tinted 

 with yellow ochre on the under tarsi and soles, and often more 

 or less grey throughout. In the adult they become a uniform 

 orange-ochre, the claws always being black. 



In summer, when the young require incessant feeding, it is 

 not unusual to meet the Night-Heron abroad during the day, 

 searching for food; but at other seasons it is strictly a night-bird. 



