WITH ADDITIONS, TO THE AVIFAUNA OF THE ISLAND. 363 



form, P. {chthyatus, it appears to me to be intermediate between 

 that and P, humilis ; as regards size and soft parts, it comes 

 rather close to the latter — the largest female that I have measur- 

 ed having a wing of 18*25, and the largest male one of 17, 

 and the iris of the adult being bright clear yellow, tinged with 

 fleshy colour in some and beautifully speckled or mottled with 

 brown in others, but never wholly brown as given by all writers 

 for ichthyatus. It is very common in the east and north-east 

 of Ceylon, affecting all estuaries of large rivers and salt 

 lagoons ; and every tank in the far interior possesses its pair, 

 waking the traveller in the early morning long before day 

 break with its extraordinary call or shout. 



A female, which I killed out of the nest to the north of Trin- 

 comalie, measured as follows : — Length, 26*5 ; wing, 18*25 ; tail, 

 10 (with a terminal black band of 3) ; tarsus, 35 ; mid-toe, 2*3; 

 its claw straight, 1*2; claw of inner toe, 1*4; bill from gape 

 straight to tip, 1*95 ; height of mandible at anterior edge of nostril, 

 0*7. Iris bright yellow, finely mottled with brown ; bill and cere 

 dark horn ; gape, and lower part of cere adjacent to it, pale bluish 

 leaden ; tarsi and feet whitish with a bluish tint. As regards 

 the colouring of the head and throat, they are cinereous grey, 

 the vertex being washed with brown, and the upper parts as well 

 as the breast are as in descriptions of Indian examples. The 

 light parts of the interscapulary region are dark shafted, and 

 the bases of the white thigh feathers blackish. 



December is the breeding season, and one young one only, for 

 the most part, is reared. The nest is an enormous structure, 

 generally built in the fork of a tree close to the water. The 

 nestling is clothed with white down, the head and hind neck 

 feathers coming out buff, and the scapulars and wing-coverts 

 brown, with conspicuous buff tips and terminal centres. 



At four months the plumage of the offspring which I reared of 

 the above example was complete and was as follows : — Iris hazel 

 brown ; bill dark brownish horn, bluish about gape ; the lower 

 mandible lighter than the upper ; cere brown ; legs and feet fleshy 

 white ; forehead, throat, face and above the eye, greyish burr, 

 which colour forms the apical and central portion of the light 

 chocolate brown feathers of the crown and hind neck ; back and 

 ■wings sepia brown, tipped with fulvous grey and with the termi- 

 nal part of shaft white ; the lesser wing-coverts are conspicuously 

 light, the greater coverts having also light bars on the inner webs ; 

 quills blackish brown, the innermost secondaries tipped fulvous, 

 and both primaries and secondaries crossed on their inner webs 

 with light bars, showing white on the under surface; 

 lesser under wing- coverts light tawny fulvous ; the greater, 

 white, barred black and tipped fulvous, forming, when the 

 wing is expanded, two dark bands ; base of the tail white 



