104 ARDEID^E. 



myself this question, and stepped round to get a side view, when, mira- 

 bile dictu, I could still see nothing but the rush-like front of the bird ! 

 His motions on the perch, as he turned slowly or quickly round, still 

 keeping the edge of the blade-like body before me, corresponded so 

 exactly with my own that I almost doubted that I had moved at all. 

 No sooner had I seen the finishing part of this marvellous instinct of 

 self-preservation (this last act making the whole complete), than such a 

 degree of delight and admiration possessed me as I have never before 

 experienced during my researches, much as I have conversed with wild 

 animals in the wilderness, and many and perfect as are the instances of 

 adaptation I have witnessed. I could not finish admiring, and thought 

 that never had anything so beautiful fallen in my way before \ for even 

 the sublime cloud-seeking instinct of the White Egret and the typical 

 Herons seemed less admirable than this ; and for some time I continued 

 experimenting, pressing down the bird's head and trying to bend him by 

 main force into some other position ; but the strange rigidity remained 

 unrelaxed, the fixed attitude unchanged. I also found, as I walked 

 round him, that, as soon as I got to the opposite side and he could no 

 longer twist himself on his perch, he whirled his body with great rapidity 

 the other way, instantly presenting the same front as before. 



Finally I plucked him forcibly from the rush and perched him on my 

 hand, upon which he flew away ; but he flew only fifty or sixty yards 

 off, and dropped into the dry grass. Here he again put in practice the 

 same instinct so ably that I groped about for ten or twelve minutes 

 before refinding him, and was astonished that a creature to all appearance 

 so weak and frail should have strength and endurance sufficient to keep 

 its body rigid and in one attitude for so long a time. 



Our figure of this species (Plate XVII.) is taken from a skin in 

 Sclater's collection, which was procured by Mr. F. Withington in the 

 Lomas de Zamora in 1883. 



322. TIGEISOMA MAKMOBATUM (Vieill.). 

 (MARBLED TIGER-BITTERN.) 



Garza jaspeada, Azara, Apunt. iii. p. 160. Ardea marmorata, Vieill. Nouv. 

 Diet. xiv. p. 415. Tigrisoma marmoratum, Serl. J.f. O. 1887, p. 30. 

 Tigrisoma fasciatum, Salvin, Ibis, 1880, p. 363 (Salta) ? Tigrisoma 

 brasiliense, White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 624 (Corrientes) ? 



Description. Above greenish grey, finely crossed by narrow fulvous vermi- 

 culations ; head and neck uniform rusty red : beneath greyish fulvous ; breast 

 flammulatcd with white ; flanks and under wing-coverts black with white 

 cross bars: whole length 18'0 inches, wing 10*5, tail 4*0. 



