ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR. 337 



bulrush and reed on the eastern side of the Logtak lake, they 

 getting aground on a small rise where bushes were inter- 

 mingled with the other dense water growth, I put up an adult 

 of this species. I did not see it for a minute, and when I 

 fired it was fully 60 yards away, and I did not bring it down. 

 It flapped on heavily another hundred yards and dropped 

 into another thicket ; but, despite all I could do, I could 

 not get at this place. There was not water enough for the 

 smallest canoe, nor ground enough to support the lightest 

 man — it was a shivering quaking mass of turf bog ; a very 

 thick mass of rotten vegetable debris, with a live green 

 coating, floating, but so thick that we could not open out a 

 canal through it. At one season this is quite dry and firm, 

 but we had had a great deal of rain and the lake was very 

 full. 



I have received this from N.-E. Cachar and from 

 Khowang in the Dibrugarh district, and Godwin-Austen 

 records it from " the Dipur Bhil, Eastern Assam." 



[I append details of the pair I shot in Dibrugarh : — 



Length. Expanse. Tail. Wing. Tarsus. Bill from gape. Weight. 

 ? ... 19-90 37-50 3'30 1050 2'80 275 19 ozs. 



$ ... 20-0 38-0 3-80 11-05 2'90 2-70 210 „ 



Irides bright yellow, with an outer-ring of orange ; legs 

 and feet ochre in front, yellowish green behind ; claws yellow- 

 ish white ; gape yellowish green ; nude loral skin greenish 

 blue ; bill, base of upper mandible and lower mandible 

 bluish ; from nostrils to tip of upper mandible black. In 

 the male the irides are greenish yellow ; legs and feet grey- 

 ish brown ; bill horny grey ; culmen dusky ; naked orbital 

 skin dusky green ; gape livid ; eyelids rosy-pink. 



The female was shot on the 17th July and the male on the 

 15th September. They had eaten fish and crabs and 

 earthworms, and were shot during the day while roosting 

 on trees overhanging pools in dense forest. — J. R. C] 



In British Burmah all we know is that we observed this 

 once in the extreme south of Tenasserim, and Major J. R. 

 Abbott once shot it on Ramri Island, Arakan. 



/ 



937.— Nycticorax griseus, Lin^ 



Common in Manipur. In a village between Bishnoopoor 

 and Moirang we disturbed a huge flock out of a number 

 of high silk cotton trees by a shot at a White -patch Myna. 



I have received a specimen of this species from Shillong, 

 and that is the only thing I know about its distribution in 

 Assam, Sylhet or Cachar. 



43 



