382 ARDEIDA. 
Bill yellowish, blue at base, black at tip; orbits greenish- 
yellow ; irides bright yellow ; legs and feet dull green. 
Adult in fuli breeding plumage has the head crested, with long 
occipital white plumes ; head and neck greyish yellow; the back 
with the feathers decomposed, dark maroon; wings, rump and 
upper tail-coverts, tail, and all beneath, white. 
In non-breeding dress, the head, neck, and breast, are 
fulvous with brown stripes, darkest on the head ; the upper 
plumage pale ashy-brown ; wings, (except the uppermost tertials) 
white, and the lower parts from the breast white ; thigh-coverts 
fulvous. 
The Pond Heron is a common permanent resident throughout 
the district. 
Genus, Butorides, Blyth. 
Bill rather long, straight, moderately stout ; neck short, thickish ; 
tibia feathered nearly to the joint ; tarsus short ; inner-toe short ; 
head crested ; feathers of the back and scapulars highly lanceolate ; 
plumage dull blue. 
Butorides javanica, Horsf. 
931.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. LI, p. 752; Butler, Guzerat.; 
Stray Feathers, Vol. 1V, p. 24; Deccan, Stray Feathers, Vol. 
IX, p. 434; Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 272 ; 
Swinhoe and Barnes, Central India; Ibis, 1885, p. 136. 
THe LirrLeE GREEN HERON. 
Length, 16 to 17; wing, 7; tail, 2°25; tarsus, 1:9; bill, 2°5. 
Bill black, pale yellow beneath ; lores yellowish- green ; irides 
bright yellow; legs pale yellow-green ; the soles dark yellow. 
Head, with lengthened occipital crest, glossy black ; a short 
black line from below the eye, between which and the black 
head the ear-coverts are greyish-white ; back and sides of neck 
ashy-grey; feathers of the back, including the scapulars and 
feathers covering the tertials, lengthened, lanceolate, dull green ; 
the upper ones with an ashy tinge; rump reddish-ashy ; upper 
tail-coverts greenish ; wing-coverts glossy green, edged with pale 
fulvous; quills dark slaty, narrowly tipped with white, and 
passing into green on the tertials, edged with fulvous; tail dark 
slaty, and the lower plumage, with the thigh-coverts, ashy, with a 
central line down the neck to the breast whitish ; the feathers 
being white at the base and becoming albescent on the vent and 
under tail-coverts. 
The Little Green Heron or Bittern is a common permanent 
resident throughout the district, breeding in a similar manner to 
the other members of the family. 
The following table may be of some use as it gives the average 
dimension of the eggs; but they are so much alike, that it is 
advisable always to shoot a bird off the nest to avoid mistakes. 
