170 MANUAL OF PHILIPPINE BIRDS. 
Species. 
a, Wings ashy gray; back blackish @@ssed with green........ nycticorax (p. 170) 
a*?, Wings maroon, nearly uniform with the back.................-.- manillensis (p. 171) 
141. NYCTICORAX NYCTICORAX (Linnzus). 
COMMON NIGHT HERON, 
Ardea nycticoraxy LINNZUS, Syst. Nat. ed. 10 (1758), 1, 142. 
Nycticorax nycticoraxy SHARPE, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1898), 26, 146; 
Hand-List (1899), 1, 198; Oates, Cat. Birds’ Eggs (1902), 2; 123; 
McGrecor and WorcEsTER, Hand-List (1906), 33. 
Nycticorax griseus BLANFORD, Fauna Brit. Ind. Bds. (1898), 4, 397, fig. 96. 
Calayan (McGregor); Luzon (Meyen, Steere Exp., McGregor); Mindanao 
(Hverett). Africa, central and southern Europe to Indian Peninsula, Malay 
Peninsula, China and Japan; Greater Sunda Islands to Celebes. : 
“Adult male in breeding plumage.—Black above, glossed with dark 
green, and with a slight shade of slaty gray on the mantle; upper scapulars 
like the back, lower ones light ashy gray; wings entirely light ashy gray 
or dove-color, with a slight shade of dull oily green on secondaries ; lower 
back, rump, upper tail-coverts, and tail clear gray or dove-color; head 
crested, black, and with a dark green gloss, and having two long white 
nuchal plumes; base of forehead white, extending above eye to behind 
the latter; feathers below the eye, cheeks, throat, and under parts pure 
white; ear-coverts and sides of neck delicate isabelline gray, extending 
in a collar round hind neck, and to sides of body; thighs and under tail- 
coverts white; under wing-coverts and axillars very pale ashy. Length, 
about 457; culmen, 76; wing, 267; tail, 102; tarsus, 71. 
“Adult female in breeding plumage.—Similar to the male in color 
and having the same long white plumes on the nape. Upper mandible 
slaty black with a whitish streak near the edges, central portion of lower 
mandible flesh-color, greenish towards base; skin round the eye pale | 
green ; tarsi and feet pale yellow; iris crimson.’ (7’. Ayres.) 
“Adults in winter plumage——Similar to the breeding plumage, but 
much greener on head and back, and not having the drooping white plumes 
on the nape. : 
“Y oung.—Brown above, varied with longitudinal triangular centers of 
rufous or buff to the feathers of back and wing-coverts; quills and tail- 
feathers tipped with white; head blackish, crest-feathers centered with 
rufous; sides of face and under surface of body fulvescent, streaked with 
dusky black, with which the feathers are margined ; thighs, under wing- 
coverts, and axillars streaked like the sides of body; throat whitish. 
“The full-grown young bird is similarly marked to the nestling de- 
scribed, but all the streaks and spots are much paler, the throat and under 
surface of the body being white, with a few dusky streaks. Judging from 
