GORSACHIUS. 173 
spotted and barred with dusky; axillars regularly banded with black and 
white ; quills ashy gray below, with the same rufous and white tips as on 
the upper surface. Culmen black, sides of the upper mandible and the 
lower one fleshy; legs and feet greenish, washed with brown on the front 
of the tarsus and toes. ‘Iris golden yellow, frosted or stippled with olive 
at the exterior; gape, orbital and loral skin greenish and slaty.’ (W. V. 
Legge.) Length, 508; culmen, 51; wing, 269; tail, 102; tarsus, 68. 
“Adult female-—Similar to the male. 
“The sequence of plumages in these night herons is not very easy to 
follow, but the nestling from Mindanao clearly proves that the first 
plumage is spotted with white and that the quills have broad white tips. 
Both G. melanolophus and G. goisagi occur on Mindanao, but the latter 
is doubtless only a winter visitor, while the former bird is resident. The 
same thing occurs in the Island of Formosa, as has been duly pointed 
out by Mr. Seebohm, in his ‘Birds of the Japanese Empire,’ where the 
difference between the two species has been correctly given. 
“In the Hume collection there are several rufous-colored birds, which 
have not yet entirely divested themselves of the wavy immature plumage, 
while a female from Dibrughur is beginning to put on rufous plumage, 
though it is still for the most part in the mottled dress of the young. 
The birds from the Nicobars are decidely smaller and darker than birds 
from the mainland, and the wing does not exceed 240 mm. 
“Young.—Entirely different from the adult, being brown above, thickly 
mottled and freckled with dusky blackish, and with longitudinal ochrace- 
ous shaft-streaks to the feathers of upper surface; wings like the back; 
primary-coverts for the most part rufous, freckled with dusky, quills | 
black, tipped with white; primaries with a subterminal shade of rufous; 
tail-feathers slaty black; crown and nape crested, the feathers black, 
with arrow-shaped spots or bars of white; sides of face and sides of neck 
regularly barred with ocherous brown and black, with mesial white spots 
on the feathers on the sides of the neck; chin and upper throat uniform 
_white; the center of the lower throat and fore neck generally pale 
vinaceous-buff, varied with black streaks and black mottling or bars, the 
feathers being browner laterally; sides of the body like the breast, 
similarly mottled and streaked with white; under tail-coverts white, with 
scarcely any black markings; under wing-coverts white mottled with 
dusky ; axillars barred with black and white.” (Sharpe.) 
“Comparatively rare. Met with about the fish-pens of the natives, 
especially just at dusk.” (Bourns and Worcester MS.) 
“The eggs of the Malay bittern in the collection are of a pale bluish- 
_ white color. Two specimens measure respectively: 45.7 by 35.5; 48.2 
by 35.5.” (Oates.) 
The above-described eggs were collected in Palawan, June 27, by 
Whitehead. 
