190 ardeidj:. 



In the adult in summer, the head, occiput, cheeks, neck, 

 and breast are rufous-buff colour, the base of each feather 

 being white, and the buff-coloured ends being formed of the 

 loose filaments of the web ; from the middle of the back 

 depends another patch of feathers, the filaments of which 

 are sufficiently elongated to reach beyond the ends of the 

 closed wings ; these feathers, as also those of the occiput, 

 and others hanging from the bottom of the neck in front, 

 are of a rufous-buff colour ; all the rest of the plumage is 

 white, a trifle creamy on the wing-coverts ; the lore and 

 irides golden -pink ; the beak reddish at the base, yellow at 

 the tip ; legs yellowish-red. Length about twenty inches. 

 Wing, from the carpal joint to the tip, nine and a half 

 inches. Tarsus three inches. 



Males and females are alike in plumage, but the latter 

 are rather smaller, and the plumes are less developed. In 

 autumn and early winter the rufous plumes are absent. 



The young specimen obtained by Montagu is thus de- 

 scribed : — " The length is about twenty inches ; the bill two 

 inches long to the feathers on the forehead, and of an 

 orange-yellow ; the lore and orbits the same ; irides pale 

 yellow. The whole plumage is snowy white, except the 

 crown of the head and the upper part of the neck before, 

 which are buff: legs three inches and a half long, and one 

 inch and a half bare space above the joint ; these parts are 

 nearly black, with a tinge of green ; the toes and claws are 

 of the same colour ; the middle claw pectinated. The skin 

 is of a very dai-k colour, almost black, so that on the cheeks 

 and sides of the neck, where the feathers are thin, it is partly 

 seen, or at least gives a dingy shade to the white plumage 

 of those parts. On the back of the head the feathers are a 

 trifle elongated, but scarcely to be called a crest ; on the 

 lower part of the neck before, the feathers are more elon- 

 gated, and, though not slender, hang detached over the upper 

 part of the breast : the tail when closed is in a slight degree 

 forked, and so short as to be entirely covered by the wings 

 when they are folded." 



