BUTT-BACKED HERON. 559 



it is said also to be found in Turkey and in Dalmatia. 

 M. Hohenacker met with it in the Caucasian country. M. 

 Temminck says it is common in India j in proof of which 

 there are many instances. Mr. Gould mentions that it is 

 plentiful in the Himalaya, and in Nepaul. Major Frank- 

 lin includes it in the birds found in the mountain chain of 

 Upper Hindostan, and on the banks of the Ganges, where 

 it is called the Caboga Heron, the term Caboga being a 

 corruption of the Indian term Gao-buga, the Cow or Cattle 

 Heron, in allusion to its being frequently seen amongst 

 cattle. Colonel Sykes also includes it in his Birds of the 

 Dukhun, where, he says, it is called Batty Bird by the 

 Europeans, that it attends oxen while grazing, and picks 

 insects from them. It is also Le Crabier de la c6te de Coro- 

 mandel of Buifon, PL Enl. 910, one of the very few figures 

 of this species. M. Temminck says it is found in Japan. 

 Dr. Horsfield includes it among his Birds of Java, under 

 the name of Ardea qffinis, and M. Temminck adds that it 

 is found at Sunda and its islands. 



Lieut. Burgess, in his Notes on the Habits of some 

 Indian Birds, says of this species, which is there called the 

 Cattle Heron, that it is abundant in the Deccan, the 

 top of a banian tree, on which they had settled, was 

 whitened by their numbers. He had counted fifty-nine 

 in one ploughed field ; their food, worms and insects. 

 They build in tall trees ; the nest is composed of sticks, 

 and contains four eggs of a pale greenish colour, one inch 

 and eight-tenths in length, by one inch and three-tenths 

 in width. Eleven eggs were obtained from one tree, on 

 which there were twenty nests. 



M. Temminck's description of the adult bird is as fol- 

 lows : The head, occiput, cheeks, neck, and breast, orange 

 colour, but the base of each feather is white ; the orange- 

 coloured ends formed of the loose unconnected filaments of 



