394 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS I ZOOLOGY. 



Adult female breeding. Similar to the adult breeding male and hav- 

 ing the same occipital cord-like plumes. 



Adults in winter are like breeding birds in general color, but lack the 

 occipital cord-like plumes, and the bill, feet and naked parts about the 

 eye are duller. The eyes generally have orange or reddish yellow irides. 



FIG. 208. 



Nycticorax cyanocephalus, immature male. 7968 P. U. O. C. Lake Pueyrredon, Patagonia 

 (Lago Moreno). 



Young of the year (P. U. O. C. 7968, male, Lake Pueyrredon, Patagonia, 

 3 May, 1899, O. A. Peterson) closely resemble the similar age of N. 

 tayazu-guira, but are more coarsely spotted with dull isabelline white, 

 and streaked about the top and sides of the head and spotted on the 

 shoulders with dull rusty brown. The ground color is deep smoky 

 brown above, and below the entire surface presents a coarse streaking of 

 dull smoky brown and whitish, in about equal proportions. 



Geographical Range. Southern South America, chiefly western, from 

 Chili to the Straits of Magellan. 



The naturalists of the Princeton Expeditions secured two examples of 

 this heron cited in full below; the considerable series in the British 

 Museum has also been examined. 



Of its distribution in Patagonia Mr. Hatcher (in MS. notes) writes : 

 " Occasionally seen among rocks in streams at bottoms of deep gorges 

 in the heart of the Southern Andes." Dr. Cunningham evidently refers 

 to this species, as he always speaks of it " as a dark grey brown night 

 heron" under the name of Nycticorax obscurus, and (p. 181, op. cit.} he 

 goes on to say "I saw only one bird that was new to me a kind of 

 night heron (Nycticorax obscurus}, with dusky-brown plumage which I 

 afterward observed at the Falkland Islands, and in many localities in the 



