324 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
or freckled at the tips with white; lower parts rufous buff, 
streaked, speckled, and blotched with white and brownish- 
black ; chin and throat white with a few dark spots. 
Bill black along the ridge, the remainder fleshy ; iris golden 
yellow ; facial skin slaty-green ; legs and feet greenish tinged 
with brown on the front of the tarsus. 
Length 20; wing 10°5; tail 3°8; tarsus 2°75; bill from 
gape 2°5. 
Distribution. —In Ceylon an occasional north-east monsoon 
migrant, coming probably from Southern India. 
In India the species occurs and breeds on the Malabar Coast, 
in Assam and Burma, and extends eastwards through the Malay 
Peninsula to Borneo and the Philippines. 
Habits—Chiefly a forest bird, but most of the specimens 
procured in Ceylon appear to have been obtained round 
Colombo, in November, on their first arrival in the Island. 
ARDETTA SINENSIS (Blanford, Vol. IV., p. 400; 
Legge, p. 1156). 
The Yellow Bittern. 
Description.—Male : crown and nape black, the feathers 
with paler gray edges ; sides of head and neck vinous, darken- 
ing to chestnut on the longer plumes of the hind-neck ; back, 
scapulars, and tertiaries pale yellowish-brown with a tinge of 
gray ; wing coverts yellowish-buff; primary coverts, wing 
quills, and tail slaty-black ; rump and upper tail coverts ashy or 
bluish-gray. The chin, throat, and fore-neck are light fulvous 
yellow ; upper breast and abdomen buff, the long pectoral 
plumes concealing the lower breast feathers, which are 
brownish-black with fulvous edges. 
Female ; the upper plumage is more rufous ; the crown is 
streaked with rufous instead of gray; the back and scapulars 
are rufous-brown, each feather edged with buff; the buff of 
the throat and fore-neck is streaked with tawny brown. 
In young birds the upper and lower plumage is more 
streaked ; the crown is brown with buff streaks, while the 
streaks on the fore-neck and breast are darker brown. 
