BOTAURUS. 183 
“Young birds are much browner than the adults, and can immediately 
be recognized by their more freckled appearance, the feathers of the upper 
surface having ochraceous margins. The mottling of the rufous on the 
neck is much as in the adult birds but there is more white and less rufous, 
and the chest-feathers are much more broadly edged with white; the 
breast is dusky brown as well as the sides of the body; the abdomen is 
white; the sides of the face and ear-coverts are chestnut, with a little 
streak of white at the base of the mandible. 
“Nestling.—Similar in color to the young bird described above, but 
very much shaded with rufous, and having a great deal of rufous on the 
sides of the face; the crown covered with down of an ocherous color, the 
throat and chest very rufous.” (Sharpe.) 
Genus BOTAURUS Stephens, 1819. 
The genus Botawrus is distinguished by its large size, comparatively 
short and stout bill and heavy legs; culmen much less than tarsus, the 
latter less than middle toe with claw; secondaries and scapulars nearly or 
quite as long as primaries. 
153. BOTAURUS STELLARIS (Linnezus). 
COMMON BITTERN. 
Ardea stellaris LInN&US, Syst. Nat. ed. 10 (1758), 1, 144. 
Botaurus stellaris SHARPE, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1898), 26, 253; Hand- 
List (1899), 1, 204; BLANForD, Fauna Brit. Ind. Bds. (1898), 4, 405, 
fig. 99 (head); OareEs, Cat. Birds’ Eggs (1902), 2, 134; McGregor, 
Bur. Government Laboratories (1905), 34, 29; McGrecor and Wor- 
CESTER, Hand-List (1906). 56. 
Luzon (Babbitt). Temperate Palaearctic region, northwestern India, Burma, 
China. 
“Adult male.—Above tawny-yellow and black, the latter predominating 
and occupying the center of the feathers, the sides of which are tawny- 
buff, freckled and irregularly barred with black; lower back, rump, and 
upper tail-covers pale tawny-buff, mottled with bars or cross-lines of 
dusky brown; marginal wing-coverts rufous, regularly barred across with 
black; median and greater coverts tawny-buff, with irregular bars or 
arrow-shaped markings of blackish brown, much less pronounced on the 
greater coverts, all of which have a rufescent tinge near the base; alula, 
primary-coverts, and quills blackish, barred with rufous, the bars some- 
what broken up on the inner webs of the quills, which are also paler; 
the inner secondaries like the scapulars, being tawny-buff on their edges 
and mottled in a similar manner; tail-feathers tawny-buff, irregularly 
mottled with black bars or cross-markings, more pronounced on the 
middle of the feathers; crown of head uniform black, with a frill of 
