438 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [No. 5. 



more strongly on the concealed portion of the feathers. Lower parts pure 

 white, with broad dark medial streaks or tears on the plumage of the 

 breast and flanks : under tail-coverts broadly banded with dusky on a 



B. Of the group exemplified by the American H. cerulea and H. rtjfescens, 

 which are white when young, and chiefly or wholly of an ashy or deep slate-colour 

 when fully adult, there is one Indian representative. 



5. H. asha : Ardea asha, Sykes ; A. gularis (?) ; H. pannosa (. ? ), Gould. 

 Hab. Peninsula of India and Ceylon ; Arabia? N. E. Africa? Australia? And, if 

 the latter, doubtless also the intervening countries. We have seen few specimens 

 of this bird ; but three examples in our museum indicate the following phases : 

 Young wholly pure white, with a slight and irregular intermixture of slaty upon a 

 few of the feathers of the back, wings and tail, in no instance occupying more 

 than a small portion of a feather in the subject under examination, except in one 

 winglet feather upon one side only. In some specimens this slaty intermixture is 

 probably more developed, in others probably wanting altogether. Adolescent or 

 adult in first breeding plumage, slaty, with large white throat-patch which appears 

 to be permanent, and also white abdominal feathers and lower tail-coverts and an 

 admixture of the same along the lower part of the front of the neck. In the 

 specimen under examination one winglet is almost wholly white, and the other 

 partially so but to a much less extent. Only one occipital crest-plume remains, 

 which with those pendent over the breast are narrow and pointed with coalescent 

 webs, as in the two preceding species. Train short, straight, not reaching to the 

 end of the tail, consisting of true Egret plumes, but tipped for some distance simi- 

 larly to the breast-plumes. This specimen must have been procured late in the 

 breeding season. The third specimen is unmixed slaty with the exception of the 

 throat-patch. It had shed its crest, pendent neck plumes, and train, and had 

 begun to put forth new feathers upon the wings of a pure deep slaty hue, contrast- 

 ing with the faded and embrowned appearance of its old plumage. Legs blackish 

 in all, with yellow toes, this colour extending more or less up the tarse, and occu- 

 pying more than half of the tarse in the white specimen. Bill apparently pale 

 yellow in the young, the upper mandible tinged with dusky in adults. Length of 

 bill to frontal plumes 3^ in. ; tarse 3f in. ; middle toe and claw 2f in. ; closed wing 

 10 in. Mr. Gould's figure of his Australian H. pannosa would appear to represent 

 a fully adult in breeding costume, having the train somewhat longer and fuller, and 

 a little turned up at the extremity ; and the toes would seem to be represented of 

 not sufficiently bright a yellow colour. 



The next species is nearly affined to H. jugularis of Australia and N. Zealand, 

 as figured by Mr. Gould, but would appear to be a smaller bird with very differ- 

 ent relative proportions. Of H. jugularis, there would seem to be a permanently 

 white variety at all ages (the H. Greyi, Gray), which also is figured in Gould's 

 Birds of Australia. 



