250 ox A COLLECTION OF BIRDS 1873.] 



Sykes (P. Z. S. 1832, p. 157, " Dukhun "), and the species described by Ur. Jerdon (Birds of 

 India, iii. p. 747) belong to Ai'dea f/ularis, Bosc (Actes de la Societe d'Hist. Nat. de Paris, i. 



Ibis, 1873, pt. i. p. 4, pi. 2, "Senegal," 1792*), the well-known Madagascar and tropical African form, and 

 ^' ^^^' not to Ardea sacra, Gm.,= A. jugularis, Forst. ("N^'aglcr, Syst. Av.). Mr. Hume, in his valuable 

 paper on the ornithology of Sindh (/. c), states that he observed the African species at Muscat, 

 along the Mekran coast, at Kurrachee, and on the Bombay coast at Teetul. As Sj'kes does not 

 mention the characteristic white cheeks of A. gularis, nor give the wing and tarsal dimensions, 

 and as I have never seen Deccan individuals, nor Sykes's type, I cannot venture to assert with 

 any confidence which of the two species migrates to the Deccan ; and the question must remain 

 open until Deccan examples have been examined. The dimensions given by Dr. Jerdon are 

 nearer those of the African bird ; but his description, while sufficient for A. sacra, will not apply 

 to A. f/ularis ; for he likewise omits all mention of the white cheeks. The species identified by 

 Mr. Blyth on all occasions as A. asha, Sykes, seems to have been the African bird. For instance 

 (Cat. Calc. Mus. no. 1642), its range is stated to be the " peninsula of India and Sindh, nee 

 C?) lower Bengal." Later (J. A. S. B. 1855, p. 264) that author identified A. asha, Sykes, with 

 A. gularis, Bosc, and also doubtfully with E. ixinnosa, Gould. And Mr. Blyth states (Ibis, 1865, 

 p. 38) the range to be South India and Ceylon. The Ceylonese bird has long since been 

 identified by Yon Pelzeln, in his exhaustive article on the general subject (Novara Exp. Aves, 

 p. 122), as belonging to Ardea scMstacea, Hempr. and Ehrenb., =yL gularis, Bosc; and 

 Mr. Blanford (Geol. Zool. Abyssinia, p. 485. no. 270, 1870) mentions that he had compared an 

 Abyssinian example with Indian specimens in the Calcutta museum, and that there can be no 

 question of their identity. 



Mr. Blyth, having some time previously detected the diflFerences which distinguish Arracan 



Ibis, 1873, examples of the Demiegret from those he had identified as belonging to Ardea asha, Sykes, 

 p. 320. Q^ receiving similar individuals from the Nicobars, described it under the name of Bemiegretta 

 concolor (/. c), the chief difierences he relied on being the shorter tarsus and the absence or 

 almost entire absence of white about the throat. Subsequently Colonel Tytler named the 

 Andaman bird Herodias andamanensis (/. c.)\ and this, Mr. Blyth (Ibis, 1868, p. 133) identified 

 with his D. concolor, a species, he added, which he had never seen in white plumage. 



The two examples obtained by Mr. Ramsay agree perfectly with Malaccan and Celebesian 

 individuals, and fall therefore under true Ardea sacra, Gm. But according to Von Pelzeln (/. c), 

 D. concolor is a good and distinct species, and inhabits the Nicobars as well as B. ji(gularis[= sacra, 

 Gm.)'. Of this last the Novara Expedition obtained one Nicobar example, which Von Pelzeln 

 correlates with two from Tahiti and two from Panypet, together with three from the Carolines, 

 one from the East Indies, and one from Java, in the Berlin museum. Of D. concolor, the same 

 expedition obtained at the Nicobars, and there only, three individuals (?) in adult plumage, 

 two in dark plumage, with white throat, and one in snow-white dress. Dr. Finsch (Orn. Central- 



* Only the first part of this work, edited by Aubin-Louis MOlin, and published in " Tan quatricme de la liberte," 

 appeared. It consists, in addition to an introductory discourse by the editor, of 129 pages of letterpress, embracing many 

 branches of natural history, and 13 plates. Of birds it contains the description of A. (fidaris by Bosc and of Buceros 

 afrkanus by Gcoffroy, fils, and also a catalogue by ilil. IJichard and Bernard of birds collected in Cayenne by M. Blond. 



