326 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
sides of the head are dull chestnut ; the under parts tawny- 
yellow, with dark brown streaks. ‘There is a conspicuous 
dark chain-patterned streak down the centre of the chin, 
throat, and fore-neck. 
Young birds resemble females, but the back and mantle 
feathers are more spotted on the edges with yellowish-buff. 
Bill yellow, the ridge dark brown ; iris pale red or yellow ; 
legs and feet yellowish-green ; naked skin of face yellow in 
females, reddish-purple in males. 
Leneth 15; wing 5:5; tail 1:7; tarsus 1°90; bill from 
gape 2°6. 
Distribution.—Found in marshy spots all over the low- 
country, and in the hills up to about 4,000 feet. It is generally 
distributed, but local in India, commoner in Burma. The 
range extends from Sind to China, the Dutch East Indies, 
and the Philippines. 
Habits—A solitary bird, and nowhere very numerous. It 
keeps more to standing paddy, long grass, or rushes near the 
water than to reed beds or tangled swamps. It breeds in 
June and July ; the nest is a pad of grass in a bush, or a thick 
clump of grass; the five or six eggs are dull white ovals, 
measuring about 1°28 by 1. 
DUPETOR FLAVICOLLIS (Blanford, p. 403). 
ARDEIRALLA FLAVICOLLIS (Legge, p. 1159). 
The Black Bittern. 
Description Male : the upper parts, including the wings, 
black with a tinge of slate-gray ; the sides of the head duller 
black ; the lower cheeks slightly mottled with rufous; a 
golden-yellow stripe down each side of the throat. The chin, 
throat, and fore-neck are motley white, chestnut, and black, 
the feathers of the fore-neck being buffy-white on one web, 
black in the centre, and chestnut on the other margin. The 
plumes on the side of the chest are slaty-gray, with white 
margins ; the centre of the breast and the abdomen slaty- 
black, the abdomen more or less streaked with white. 
Females are brown, 

