170 MANUAL OF PHILIPPINE BIRDS. 



Species. 



a 1 . Wings ashy gray; back blackish glossed with green nycticorax (p. 170) 



a 2 . Wings maroon, nearly uniform with the back manillensis (p. 171) 



141. NYCTICORAX NYCTICORAX (Linnaeus). 

 COMMON NIGHT HERON, 



Ardea nycticorax LINNAEUS, Syst. Nat. ed. 10 (1758), 1, 142. 



Nycticorax nycticorax SHABPE, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1898), 26, 146; 



Hand-List (1899), 1, 198; GATES, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1902), 2; 123; 



MCGREGOR 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 

 (Everett). 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.' (T. Ay res.) 



"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. 



"Young. 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 



