FROM WESTERN SUiMATRA. 83 



and whole lower mandible whitish blue, feet dirty yellow. 

 Native name unknown." 



Collected 8 January near Moeara Laboe. 



This specimen is , as far as I know , the first instance 

 for the occurrence of this species in Sumatra , since Raffles 

 recorded his typical adult bird from that Island. It differs 

 in no way from the well-known immature plumage of this 

 species, plainly described in several papers throughout or- 

 nithological literature , and upon which Temminck has based 

 his Nycticorax limnophilax. 



I do not believe that at present still some doubts exist 

 as to the identity of G. limnophilax (Temm.) with G. me- 

 lanophus (Raffl.), as the first name is, with the exception 

 of Gray (Handl.) and Salvadori (Ucc. di Borneo 1874), no 

 more applied to any form of this genus, since Schlegel's Cata- 

 logue of the Ardeae in the Leyden Museum was published. 



At that time Schlegel disposed of three specimens of 

 this species : an adult bird from the Philippines and three 

 immature though full-grown ones, one of which from 

 Banka, the two others from Java. Since that time the 

 Museum received five other ones , i. e. an adult and two 

 immature from Java, and two adult, one of which is from 

 Banka , while the other is collected by Teysmann either in 

 Banka or in Borneo , and this series is now increased by 

 the above mentioned young male from Sumatra. In this 

 series is a specimen — n°. 2 of Schlegel's Catalogue — in 

 immature plumage , but having the sides of head and neck , 

 interscapulary feathers and scapularies already very strongly 

 tinged with the reddish brown, which is so characteristical 

 in the plumage of the adult. The black occipital feathers 

 in this specimen are still spotted with white. The specimen 

 considered by Prof. Schlegel to be adult, has not yet assu- 

 med its fully adult plumage, though its crest is entirely 

 black , the dark vermiculations on back , wing-coverts and 

 tertiary quills being much more intensely expressed than 

 is the case with the fully adult specimen from Java. 



This species seems to range over whole continental India , 



Notes from the Leyden IMuseura, Vol. IX. 



