THE PADDY-BIRD. 165 



they have not been introduced, and are not on 

 speaking terms. The Buff-backed Egret is not a 

 Calcutta bird, but some other of the Paddy-bird's 

 relations are. I have seen the little Cinnamon 

 Bittern {Ardetta cinnamomea) wild in the Zoo, and it 

 has bred in the Botanic Gardens ; and the Blue 

 Bittern {Dupetor flavicollis), which is dark slate with 

 a bufi neck, bred wild in the Zoo, a year or two ago, 

 and probably does still. Then, of course, all habitues 

 of that exhibition know that the Night-Heron 

 {Nycticorax griseus) has for years invaded the 

 Alipore Gardens and used the islands in the middle 

 of the tank for a combination of dormitory and 

 nursery, in large numbers too. 



So numerous, indeed, did they become, that they 

 iad to be given notice to quit, so that the heronry 

 is now a thing of the past. The Night-Heron is 

 much bigger than the Paddy-bird, being larger than 

 a crow, and is unusually short-necked and thickset 

 for a heron. The old one is slate-grey and black, 

 while the young are brown with white spots, and 

 look altogether different. Whether the habit of 

 going out at night is of great benefit to this bird is 

 hard to say, but he certainly has a very wide range 

 being found over most of the world. The Paddy-bird 

 is purely Indian and Burmese, and is so very common 

 that he is one of the characteristic birds of the 



