in North-eastern Brazil. 355 



the monotony of its appearance. Outside the large towns 

 this Urubii is replaced, apparently, by Cathartes aura. 



—96. Ardea candidissima. 



When on the Parahyba river, between the bar at its mouth 

 and the anchorage below the town, I saw great numbers of 

 this beautiful white Egret, either flying slowly up stream in 

 twos and threes, high in the air, or wading about on the mud- 

 flats left bare by the tide in search of food. 



^-97. BUTORIDES CYANURUS. 



This small Bittern was very common in marshy ground 

 round Becife, and a pair or two frequented the reed-beds at 

 the bottom of the garden at Estancia. These had a nest 

 in the mangrove-bushes near the stream. The nest was 

 a loose platform of sticks, a couple of feet or so, I was told, 

 above the ground. 



The native name is " Socoa.^^ 



98. Sarcidiornis carunculata. 



Of the South-American Black-backed Goose I found a fine 

 living pair in the garden at Estancia, and their owner was 

 kind enough to send them to London for the Zoological 

 Gardens, where they now arc. These birds had been brought 

 down some months before from the Sertoes of the interior by 

 a " matuto " for sale in Becife. 



According to Mr. Sclater (P. Z. S. 1876, p. 695), in the 

 American Sarcidiornis " the sexes are nearly equal in size, 

 the female bears a comb on the head as well as the male, and 

 the flanks are conspicuously black. ^^ These remarks were 

 based upon the examination of three specimens then living in 

 the Zoological Gardens, supposed to be " an adult male and an 

 adult and younger female,^"* and to have been imported from 

 Maranham. The pair of birds I brought back, however, do 

 not agree with the above-quoted description, inasmuch as the 

 female bird is much smaller than the male and has no wattle 

 at all on tlic head, in those respects agreeing with the hen of 

 the Indian species (^S'. melanonota) , Of the three birds men* 

 tioned by Mr. Sclater, two have since died, and on dissection 

 turned out to be males; the third is still (February 10) alive. 



