ARDEA GOLIATH. 1125 



has the red portions of the plumage brighter than in the Indian bird above described ; the under surface is almost 

 entirely rufous, and the pectoral tufts paler-coloured, without the slate-brown stripes, being simply whitish edged 

 with slaty. 



Young: immature bird (Calcutta, Brit. Mus. ; Ardea nobilis). Wing 21-5 inches ; tail7 - 5; tarsus 6-5; middle toe 4'3 ; 

 hind toe 2-0 ; bill to gape 7'3. 



Upper parts dark ashy, the scapulars with light terminal stripes ; the entire neck purplish ashy, the feathers lanceolate, 

 and towards the chest with white central shaft-stripes, diminishing towards the upper part into fine shaft-lines ; 

 the under surface white, the chest-feathers with ashy margins ; forehead ashy brown ; crown and sides of the 

 head dark reddish ashy, the crest-feathers 6 inches long, concolorous with the head and some with light shaft- 

 lines ; chin and gorge whitish tinged with ash-brown ; under wing white. 



Obs. Doubts have been expressed as to whether the Indian and African birds are the same ; but I apprehend that 

 they are both of the one stock, those that visit India being doubtless stragglers migrating from Africa along the coasts 

 of Arabia to the former country. There appears, at any rate, to be no difference either in dimensions or plumage 

 between Indian and African birds. 



Distribution. — The collection of the Colombo Museum has lately been enriched by the acquisition of 

 two specimens of this magnificent Heron. The first was shot by Mr. Le Mesurrier on the 4th April, 1878, 

 on the banks of the Mahawelliganga, a few miles above Kandakardu in the Tamankada pattuwa ; the second, 

 a female was killed in the beginning of 1879 at Palatupana, in the Kirinde district, by Mr. Exham Swyny, 

 another example, probably its mate, being seen about the same time at Willapalawewa. Prior to the date 

 of meeting with the first of these examples the bird had never been heard of in Ceylon ; but it may have 

 perchance strayed to the island before during the north-east monsoon. 



In India it is very rare. Jerdon says that he observed it once on the banks of a river at the foot of the 

 Khasia hills and in 1845-46 Blyth obtained several specimens in the Calcutta bazaar which are said to have 

 been taken at a salt lake near Calcutta. Since then the species has not been heard of ; and Mr. Hume, who has 

 used every exertion to learn something of its distribution in India, and has shown preserved specimens to 

 Calcutta fowlers, who say they have never seen it, has been quite unsuccessful in obtaining any infor- 

 mation of the recent occurrence in India of this Heron. He, however, from his remarks concerning some 

 Herons seen in Sindh in 1872, seems to have met with it there. He speaks of six gigantic Herons which 

 baffled all his endeavours to get within shot, and which were twice as large as the common species, and nearly 

 as tall as a pair of Cranes with which they consorted. These could have been no other than the present 

 bird. Westward of this latter region it probably occurs along the shores of Arabia to the Red Sea and the 

 adjacent portion of the continent of Africa, which appears to be its true home. Von Heuglin met with it on 

 both shores of the Red Sea up to latitude 24° N v southwards in the Gulf of Aden, also throughout Abyssinia 

 (whence Ruppell described his specimen) up to 6000 feet elevation, and finally in Tallah, Senaar, East Kordofan, 

 and the country of the White Nile, as far south as the equator. It extends down the eastern side of the 

 continent to the Cape, having been obtained on the Zambezi, at Mozambique, and at Lake Nyassa in the 

 interior and in all probability it occurs on the shores of all the great inland seas. In the Transvaal Mr. Ayres 

 recently procured it ; and in the Lydenburg district Mr. F. A. Barratt met with it on the Vaal river. Layard 

 speaks of it as a regular inhabitant of the bays and mouths of the rivers in Natal, and writes of a male 

 specimen which was procured in Cape Colony at Colesberg. It has been found in Madagascar, and of its 

 occurrence there Messrs. Hartlaub and Schlegel speak. In his ' Birds of Damara Land ' Mr. Andersson re- 

 marks . « These fine Herons are not uncommon in the Lake-regions, from whence they make temporary and 



solitary excursions into Damara Land during the wet season. I have met with them," he says, "on the rivers 

 Okavango and Teoughe, at Lake Ngami, and thence eastward to the river Botletle"." Northward it has been 

 obtained in Gaboon and also in Senegambia ; but I am not aware that it has ever been noticed in Morocco 

 or anywhere along the north coast of the continent. 



Habits. This Gigantic Heron frequents the mouths and banks of large rivers and the borders of both 



fresh- and salt-water lakes. It appears to be almost exclusively a fish-eater, but devours worms, frogs, and 

 reptiles when it encounters them. Mr. Ayres speaks of an example which he shot in the Transvaal having 



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