244 ABDEID.E. 



Demiegretta gularis (Bosc). The Western Reef-Heron. 



Demiegretta asha (St/kes), Jerd. B. 2nd. ii, p. 747. 

 Ardea gularis, Bosc, Hume, Hough Draft N. fy E. no. 928. 



The Western Beef-Heron is found as a permanent resident 

 along, and in the neighbourhood of, the whole western coast of 

 India from Soomeanee Bay to Cape Comorin, and up the eastern 

 coast as far as Paumben (further up I have not yet certainly traced 

 it), and in Ceylon. 



Mr. Layard has recorded that this bird occurs in the Jaffna estuary 

 and a lake near Chilaw ; and he says : " The eggs are of a pale 

 blue colour ; in shape a rounded oval. Axis 1*83 ; diameter 1/42. 

 The nest is a huge structure of sticks placed in trees by the water- 

 side. Incubation goes on in May and June in the Chilaw Lake. 

 Eggs said to be from four to six in number." 



Nests said to belong to this species, pointed out to me on the 

 mangrove trees in Karachi Harbour, were very moderate-sized 

 stick nests in the tops of the mangrove bushes, perhaps at most 5 

 or 6 feet above high-water level. 



Colonel Butler has sent me the following interesting note on 

 the breeding of this species : " About the 9th May, 1878, my 

 friend Mr. Nash, Telegraph Dept., kindly, at my request, sent a 

 boat to Kalmat, a creek about 20 or 25 miles N.W. of Ormarra on 

 the Hekrau coast, overgrown with mangrove bushes and running 

 several miles inland, where small colonies of the present species 

 and a white Egret about the same size, which I believe to be 

 merely the white variety of this species, were breeding in company 

 with a few Pond-Herons (A. grayi}. The nests were described as 

 being of the usual Egret tvpe, composed of twigs of mangrove 

 bushes and lined with green leaves of the same tree, the whole 

 being about a foot in diameter. 



" The eggs, varying in number from 3 to 5, have a peculiarity 

 in some instances which I have never observed in the eggs of any 

 other Egret, and that is, if examined very closely, they exhibit two 

 different shades of colouring, which is produced by the pale bluish- 

 green colour of the lower surface showing through the paler blue 

 upper surface in small patches, and looking as if the outer blue 

 covering had been rubbed off in places. In many eggs it does not 

 exist, and where it does exist it requires very close scrutiny and 

 a good light to observe it ; but, as I said before, I believe it to be 

 a peculiarity confined to the eggs of this species. 



" Knowing of a clump of mangrove bushes, in the Karachi 

 Harbour, where these birds bred last year, I wrote and asked my 

 friend Capt. Bishop to visit the place at the beginning of May 

 this year (1878), and the result was he procured a nice series of 

 fresh eggs, all of which were taken between the 8th and 21st of 

 the month, after which date all of the nests contained either young 

 birds, or eggs too far gone to blow. Four was the greatest number 

 of eggs in one nest. 



