170 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



their shining white plumage gleaming out against 

 its pale blue background as they travel from one to 

 another of the multitudinous swamps surrounding 

 the town. The attitudes which they assume when 

 at rest are often strangely grotesque (Plate XI.). 



Various other sorts of herons visit and some- 

 times permanently settle in the large and quiet 

 gardens of the suburbs. The commonest of these is 

 the chestnut bittern, Ardetta cinnamomea, pairs of 

 which often appear for a few days, flying about 

 among the trees around ponds and crying aloud to 

 one another. In large enclosures, such as the 

 Zoological Garden in Alipur, they sometimes stay 

 to nest, usually choosing a dense clump of screw- 

 pines for the site of their building operations. The 

 Indian reef-heron, Leptorodius asha, that is so 

 common in the tidal channels of the Sundarbans; 

 and the little green heron, Butorides javanica, do 

 not venture close to town nearly so often, but now 

 and then may be seen in the dusk of evening, fly- 

 ing about over open grassy spaces. Night-herons, 

 Nycticorax griseus, 1 are to be heard almost every 

 evening as they pass high overhead in the late 

 dusk, calling loudly to one another at brief intervals 

 as they go. They rarely establish a permanent 

 settlement within the limits of a garden, but when 

 they do meet with one that suits their fancy they 

 congregate within it in such numbers as to become 

 a great nuisance unless there be a very large amount 



1 They are larger than cattle-egrets, and much more stoutly built. 



