1170 GOESACHIUS MELANOLOPIIUS. 



trasting with the blackish-brown sides of the fore neck, which are barred with fulvous, but no mention is made 

 of the different colour of the crest. It is important to note that in Mr. Hume's specimen some of the feathers 

 are ferruginous, as this is the main point in which most of the Japanese examples have differed from Lillian ; and 

 it may be that the rufous colour is a sexual peculiarity; but it is more likely an individual one, as will be seen 

 presently. 



Young nestling (Takow: Mus. Seebohm). Primaries half-grown ; wing 7*0 inches, tarsus 2-7. 



Head and occipital feathers black ; the coronal feathers with pure white mesial lines, and the occipital feathers with 

 oval ceutral spots, two on some feathers and one on others ; hind-neck feathers brown, with transverse spots of 

 white ; back and scapulars brown, with narrow wavy cross bars of buff, almost obsolete on the back, taking the 

 form of wavy pencillings on the wing-coverts, and there overcoming the dark markings ; the winglet, primary- 

 coverts, and quills nearly as in the adult, but the latter wanting the rufous near the tips ; tail brown ; chin and 

 throat whitish ; fore neck dusky buff, barred with blackish ; on the sides of the neck the barring is narrow; 

 breast buff, barred and irregularly marked with slaty blackish ; lesser under wing-coverts the same, the greater 

 series white with dark bases. 



A second nestling of same date (June 1SG5), and probably a fellow bird, is marked on the head in the same manner, 

 bin the back is altogether different, the major portion of the feathers being black with a large buff central spot 

 and indistinct tippings of rufescent ; the ground-colour of the wing-coverts is more rufous ; surmounting the 

 white tips of the primaries there is a small amount of rufous. 



Immature birds almost, if not quite, equal adults in size. An example in the Colombo Museum measures — wing 

 10"1 indies ; tail 3"75 : tarsus 2-5 ; bill at front 1*2. During adolescence the plumage is somewhat similar to that 

 of the nestling's above described, being characterized by the white tips and bars on the crest-feathers and the 

 conspicuously marked upper surface. 



An immature example shot near Colombo has the forehead, crown, and long crest-feathers black, with buff tips 

 on the head, and white central spots and tips on the crest^feathers ; back and sides of neck and whole upper 

 surface dark bluish brown, with irregular wavy bars and edgings of buff and light ferruginous ; upper tail-coverts 

 and rump blackish brown, with a white spot near the tip of most of the feathers; quills and tail much as in the 

 adult, but with more of the tips white and less chestnut adjacent to them; tertials conspicuously mottled like the 

 scapulars; primary wing-coverts chestnut with white tips, edged above with dark pencillings; chin and throat 

 white, the centre of t lie fore neck conspicuously marked with brown, white, and ferruginous; the lower neck- 

 feathers mottled with ferruginous on the inner webs, and with a longitudinal black border down the shaft, and 

 the outer webs white, with yellow edgings ; under surface as above described in the adult. 



Obs. A male from Formosa has the head rufous like the hind neck, just tinged with ashy, the crest rufous and not so 

 long as in other specimens ; the interscapular region and back are uniform dark rusty brown ; the ground-colour of 

 the wing-coverts is rufous; there is a stripe down the throat, and the dark markings of the breast and flanks are very 

 bold. Dimensions — wing 102 inches, tarsus 3 - 05. This specimen has some resemblance to a figure of a "young 

 i. ile" in the 'Fauna Japonica,' pi. 20. Two other examples in the " Swinhoe collection," from Formosa (not 

 sexed), have the head equally dark ; but one is more rufous throughout than the other. The ground-colour of the 

 wings of the paler bird is rufescent buff ; the iinderparts are in a corresponding degree white, lacking the 

 rufous edgings on the abdominal leathers. It corresponds with the description above given of the Nieobar female, 

 but it has a stripe down the chin. Dimensions of these two birds — wings 103 to 10-5 inches ; tarsus 2-G; bill to 

 gape 2-4 to 2 - 7. On the evidence afforded by the first of these three specimens, procured in March, Swinhoe affirms 

 that the dark crest in the Eastern form is dropped in winter and red feathers worn instead. I think, however, 

 that this solitary evidence is insufficient, particularly as we have a Nieobar female in much the same plumage. It 

 would appear rather to be an individual peculiarity; and I see no reason to consider the Japanese and Formosan 

 bird distinct from the Malacean. Lord Tweeddale, however, affirms that the bill, in all Malaccan examples he has 

 examined, is longer and straighter than in a Nagasaki specimen. 



Distribution. — This handsome Bittern, which is a north-east monsoon migrant from Malacca to India 

 and Ceylon, was discovered in the latter many years before it was noticed on the mainland. Layard procured 

 liree specimens about Colombo in November 1852, and added the species to the avifauna of Ceylon in his 

 "Notes." Many years after, in the same month in 18G0, Mr. Holdsworth captured a specimen at Aripu; 

 and again, in November 1876, a fine example, now in the Colombo Museum, was shot near Colombo. Another 

 specimen was caught on the Colombo lake in November 1875; and in October of the following year a male 



