ARDEA* GULARIS. 



(THE ASHY HERON.) 



Ardea gularis, Bosc, Actes Soc. d'Hist. Nat. i. p. 4, t. 2 (1792); Von Heuglin, Orn. N.Ost- 



Afr. ii. p. 1059 (1873). 

 Ardea asha (Sykes), P. Z. S. 1832, p. 157 ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1854, xiv. p. 110. 

 Herodias asha (Sykes), Blytk, Cat. B. Mas. A. S. B. p. 280 (1849). 



Lemiegretta asha (Sykes), Jerdon, B. of Ind. iii. p. 747 (1864) ; Holdsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 477. 

 Demiegretta gularis (Boie), Hume, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 254, et 1876, p. 465, et 1879, p. 114 



(List B. of Ind.). 

 Slate-coloured Heron, Sykes; Beef -Heron of some. Kala lagla, Hind. (Jerdon). 



Not< . The bill is slightly curved in this species and its allies. 



Adult female (Ceylon). Length 25-0 inches ; wing 10-8 : tail 4-0 ; tarsus 3-7 ; bare tibia 2-3 ; middle toe 2-6, its claw 

 0-42 ; hind toe 1*2 ; bill to gape 4 - 3, at front 3-7. Pectination of middle claw rather coarse. — Adult male ami 

 female (Sindh). Length 24-25 to 27-5 ; tail from vent 3-0 to 3 - 8 ; wing 10-0 to 11-4 ; tarsus 3-6 to 4-4 ; bill at front 

 3-6 to 4-1 : weight 1 lb. to 1 lb. 4 oz. (Hume). (Bombay : white variety) Length 24-1 inches ; wing 10 - 2 ; tail 3*8 ; 

 tarsus 3-8; bill from gape 4-2 (Hume). (Egypt) Length 24-0 ; wing 10-25 to 11-25; tarsus 4-16 to 4-1 ; bill at 

 front 3-6S to 3-84 ( Von Heuglin ) : the measurements for tarsus in the latter case are abnormal. 



( ( Vvlon) Iris golden yellow ; bill brownish yellow, paling to yellowish at the tip ; culmen between nostrils dark brown ; 

 gape greenish ; tibia and just below the knee brown ; tarsus green, paling to greenish yellow at the tips of the toes. 



Head (with crest of two attenuated feathers 3| inches in length), neck, upper surface, and wings dark slate-blue, the 

 scapulars and lower fore-neck plumes pale or grey-slate, the former decomposed, but the barbs joining near the 

 tip to form a lanceolate web, which reaches to within 1 inch of the tip of the tail ; lesser wing-coverts and rump 

 nigrescent ; primary -coverts and the feathers at their base on the edge of the wing pure white (the fourth feather 

 of these coverts on the right wing is slate-coloured in the specimen under consideration) : chin and throat up to a 

 /< vt I with thr gape white, terminating in a point on the centre of the fore neck 6 inches from the chin ; under 

 surface from the chest to the under tail-coverts blackish slate ; under wing slate-blue, the lesser under coverts 

 nigrescent. 



The white primary-coverts (as proved by the presence of a dark feather on one wing) is an abnormal development of 

 white in this specimen. Mr. Hume has recently called attention (' Stray Feath.' 1878, vii. p. 453) to a similar 

 specimen shot in Kutch by Capt. Butler. 



II liitt variety. Not unfrequently examples of this species are found pure white throughout. These are not young 

 birds, as was supposed by Jerdon, for Von Heuglin states that he found young nearly all white and others ash- 

 grey in nests. 



J ."<//■/. The nestling, according to Von Heuglin, is either white, variegated more or less with brownish grey, or dusky 

 ash-grey, and these appear to turn as yearlings into pure white or ashy grey respectively. The colour of the 

 latter is much paler than in old birds ; and they have, says Mr. Hume, a good deal of white about the abdomen 

 and vent, and occasionally on the centre of the breast, and want the crest and breast-plumes. The absence of the 

 crest seems to mark them as adolescent birds, and distinguishes them from crested adults with such a development 

 of white as I have noticed above. It is, however, possible that old birds with white wing-coverts may have been 

 thus plumaged from the nest. 



'" I do not adopt the genus Demiegretta for this species, as structurally and in character of plumage it is, I consider, 



a true Heron. Its marine habits are certainly abnormal; but the Common Heron is, in England, much seen on the sea- 



in the autumn ; and the Blue Heron of Australia (A. novce-hollandice), by no means a mariue species, may be 



dered to connect the Reef-Herons with restricted Ardea. The Demiegretta section, in which a white plumage is 

 ■ ' -casionally assumed, seems to lead to the next subgenus, Herodias, or White Herons. 



