BDTOKIDES JAYANICA. 1155 



which is instantly pierced with an unerring aim and quickness of action that the beholder would never have 

 thought it capable of. I have seen it standing early in the afternoon by the water of the Batticaloa Lake, 

 within five yards of the highroad, with an air of the most utter preoccupation, quite regardless of the passing 

 vehicles and seemingly of any thing else in this world ; but beneath this cloak of apathy lurks a watchful 

 spirit ; and a keen eye, though it cannot be observed, is surveying the finny prospect around it ! At sundown 

 it becomes active and flies about, seeking hunting-grounds for the night. Herr Meyer, who observed it at 

 the Lake of Tondano, Celebes, says it " sits much on a twig over or near water, bent together, but eagerly looking- 

 for food and suddenly rushing down on a fish or crab ; " he also remarks that it feeds on eggs of freshwater 

 fishes, especially of Ophiocephalus striatus, which strong fish often attacks the bird and hinders it from 

 devouring the eggs (!). This writer likens the call to qua qua, like that of a Crow. Occasionally this 

 Bittern may be seen on the seashore ; and Captain Wade-Dalton informs me that he shot one on the rocks 

 near the Galle lighthouse. 



Nidification. — The Green Bittern breeds in India from May until August. In May its nest has been 

 found in Sindh ; in July on the Jumna canal ; in August in the Etawah and Muttra districts. I am not 

 aware that its eggs have ever been found in Ceylon ; but, judging by the young birds being about in first 

 plumage at the end of the year, the breeding- time must be similar to that in India. The nest is usually placed 

 near the water among reeds and rushes, or on vegetation growing in water. One which Mr. Hume found 

 " was partly supported on the twigs of a dead sunken Babool branch, and partly on rushes bent down over 

 this, forming a little platform about 2 feet above the water's edge. It was a small stick-nest, perhaps 8 inches 

 in diameter." Captain G. Marshall found a nest on a Keekur-tree at the edge of a jheel, on a horizontal 

 branch about 20 feet from the ground, and describes it as a slight structure of sticks. 



The eggs are three in number, elongated ovals, pointed at both ends ; greenish white, and vary in length 

 from "1-59 to 1- 64 inch, and in breadth from 1-19 to 123." The nest which Captain Marshall found 

 contained three young ones, which were nearly fledged but unable to fly, and crept about among the thorny 

 branches. 



Genus AEDETTA. 



Bill much as in Butorides, deeper at the base, and with the culmen flat at the forehead ; 

 gonys short ; naral groove capacious. Legs short ; tibia feathered down to the knee ; tarsus 

 scarcely longer than the middle toe and claw. 



Head with a short crest ; neck-feathers elongated ; back of the neck bare ; scapulars normal. 



Of nocturnal habit. 



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