38 GRALLATORES. BOTAURUS. BIrTeRN. 
legs and toes are wax-yellow, tinged with green. The 
tibize are clothed with feathers to the tarsal joint. 
« The male and female are alike. 
Ga Fig. 2. The young bird after the first moulting. 
The crown of the head is blackish-green. The back and 
scapulars chesnut - brown, margined with yellowish- 
white. On each side of the throat is a spot of white. 
Front part of the neck yellowish-brown, mixed with 
streaks of white; sides of the neck reddish-brown. 
Feathers of the breast deep liver-brown, with a glossy 
lustre; and margined with yellowish-white, Belly and 
flanks yellowish-white, with streaks of brown. Tail 
blackish-green. Legs pale olive-green. Bill yellowish- 
brown. 
Genus NYCTICORAX. NIGHT-HERON. 
GENERIC CHARACTERS. 
Bill very strong, rather longer than the head, compressed ; 
the upper mandible curving towards the point, and_ slightly 
bulging towards the base; maxilla sulcated for three-fourths 
of its length, and emarginated ; culmen rounded ; tomia of 
both mandibles strait and sharp, that of the under mandible 
entering within the upper one. Nostrils basal, longitudinal, 
placed in the furrow of the maxilla, and covered above by a 
naked membrane; lores and orbits naked. Legs of mean 
length, slender ; toes, three anterior and one posterior ; mid- 
dle toe not so long as the tarsus; exterior toe connected by a 
membrane to the middle one as far as the first joint. Claws 
short, faleated; that of the middle toe pectinated. Tibiz 
naked for a short space above the tarsal joint. 
Wings having the first quill-feather shorter than the se- 
cond ; the third the longest of all. In plumage the occiput 
