ARDEA 569 



Moor. ; Kilchia, Karchia-bayla, Hindu. ; Siao-pad-hao, Chin. ; 

 Shira-sagi y Jap. 



( ad. (Spain). Entire plumage pure white ; two long, narrow feathers 

 form a plume from the nape ; a large bunch of elongated recurved hair-like 

 plumes extend from the lower back beyond the tail, and a bunch of 

 elongated feathers slightly tinged with isabelline on the lower throat ; bill 

 black, but yellowish grey at the base of the lower mandible, bare space 

 about the eye lead-blue ; iris pale yellow ; legs and feet black, soles 

 yellow. Culmen 3'5, wing ll'O, tail 4'5, tarsus 4'4 inch. Female similar 

 but somewhat smaller. In the Arinter the occipital and dorsal plumes are 

 absent. 



Hob. Southern Europe, straying rarely to northern con- 

 tinental Europe and Great Britain ; Azores, Canaries, and Cape 

 Verde Islands ; Africa south to the Cape ; Asia east to Japan, 

 north to northern China, south to Ceylon, the Malay peninsula 

 and the Philippines. H. nigripes from Java to Australia is 

 scarcely separable from the present species, differing only in 

 having no yellow on the feet. 



In habits it does not differ from its allies and like them is 

 very gregarious, frequenting large marshes, and feeding on fish, 

 frogs, aquatic insects, worms, &c. It breeds in colonies, con- 

 structing its nest of dry twigs and reed-stems lined with finer 

 leaves of aquatic plants, grass, and roots, and placing it on low 

 trees, rush-beds, or on the ground, and late in May or early in 

 June, usually 4 but occasionally 5 or 6 eggs are deposited, 

 which are uniform pale greenish blue and measure about 1'76 

 by 1-26. 



On the American continent the present species is replaced by 

 A. candidissima, Gm. Demiegretta sacra, which inhabits the 

 islands in the Bay of Bengal south to Australia and New 

 Zealand and most of the Islands in the Pacific, is said to have 

 strayed north to the islands in the Bay of Corea, but I cannot 

 include it as a Palasarctic species. 



795. BUFF-BACKED HERON. . 

 ARDEA IBIS. 



Ardea ibis, Linn., Hasselq. Iter. p. 248 (1757) ; id. in Hasselq. Voy. 

 etc. p. 198 (1766); A. lucidal (Rafin.) ; Caratteri, p. 5 (1810); 

 . (Sharpe), Cat. B. Br. Mus. xxvi. p. 213 ; A. bubulcus, Audouin, Expl. 

 Somm. PL Ois. de ?%yptc, i. p. 298 (1825) ; Dresser, vi. p. 245, 

 pi. 400, fig. 1 ; Saunders, p. 375 ; Lilford, vii. p. 23, pi. 8 ; 

 A. russata (Wagler), Syst. Av. Ardea, p. 178, sp. 12 (1827, pt.) ; 

 Gould, B. of E. iv. pi. 278 ; id. B. of Gt. Brit. iv. pi. 24. 



