114 HERON. 



base ; lore and irides yellow ; head feathers, neck behind, and 

 sides, white, or rufous white, with dull chestnut margins, and white 

 tips ; throat white ; from it a stripe of the same passes down the fore 

 part of the neck to the breast, which is yellowish white ; belly the 

 same; scapulars, lesser wing - coverts, and back, chestnut; the other 

 coverts mixed white and pale yellow ; the two first quills are ash- 

 colour on the outer webs, the rest only at the tips, obscurely shaded 

 with rufous and white; rump and tail white; legs dusky, claws 

 blackish. 



Inhabits the borders of the Caspian Sea. These seem to be 

 further Varieties of the Sguacco Heron. M. Temminck says, that 

 they are birds in the second year's plumage. 



82— BLACK-BACKED SGUACCO. 



BILL yellow, with a dusky tip ; bare space before the eye 

 greenish yellow; head and neck rufous white; the lower part of the 

 neck behind, and all before to the breast rufous orange, the feathers 

 much elongated on the latter; back between the wings, and rump, 

 violet black ; but the wings, all beneath from the breast, and tail, 

 are white; legs yellow. 



Another, supposed the female. Bill and legs yellow ; head and 

 neck pale, streaked all over with brown ; chin white; the back deep 

 ferruginous brown ; wings, under part from the breast, and tail 

 white. 



The first of these, with the exception of the black back, has 

 much affinity with the Sguacco Heron, the other answers, in most 

 respects, to the Senegal Bittern. We have seen these figured in 

 the same drawing, leading one to think them merely differing in 

 sex ; and the late Mr. Thompson received specimens of both from 

 New-Holland. 



