GRALLATORES. 315 



Sp. 559. BUTOROIDES FLAVICOLLIS. 

 Yellow-necked Mangrove-Bittern. 

 Ardea flavicollis. Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 701. 

 nigra, Vieill. 2nd Edit, du Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., torn. xiv. 



p. 417. 

 Yellow-necked Heron, Lath. Gen. Syn., Supp. p. 239. 

 Ardetta flavicoUis, G. R. Gray, List of Birds in Brit. Mus. Coll., 



part iii. p. 84. 

 gouldi, Bonap. Compt. Rend, de PAcad. Sci., torn, xliii., seance 



du 2 Aout, 1856. 

 Wilr-gorl, Aborigines of Port Essington. 

 Little Brown Bittern of the Colonists. 



Ardetta flavicoUis, Gould, Birds of Australia, fol., vol. vi. pi. 65. 



I have received examples of this beautiful species from 

 New South Wales, Swan River and Port Essington ; others 

 were also obtained by Sir George Grey on the north-west 

 coast. 



The Yellow-necked Bittern is exclusively an inhabitant of 

 the mangroves, from which it is not easily driven, for it readily 

 eludes pursuit by the facility with which it runs over the mud 

 beneath their roots for a long time and distance, and it must 

 be very closely followed up before it can be forced to take 

 wing. 



Eggs were taken on the 6th of January, in a nest formed 

 of small sticks resting on a slender horizontal branch of a 

 mangrove ; they were two in number, and of a very much 

 paler bluish green and more rounded form than those of any 

 other species of the group, being one inch and a half long by 

 one inch and an eighth broad. 



The male has the crown of the head, back of the neck and 

 all the upper surface bronzy black ; primaries and tail bluish 

 slate-colour ; chin whitish ; throat deep buff, the feathers 

 down the centre of the chin and throat having their inner webs 

 pale buff and their tips blackish brown, giving the whole a 



