170 



ORNITHOLOGY OF NEPAL. 



which is usually the longest of all ; 3 first strongly emarginate on the inner 

 web near the tips — ^on the outer webs entire or nearly so, Pecten of the 

 outer web complete on the 1st quill — extending over only half of the second. 

 Egrets large, consisting of 6 to 10 gradated plumes rising from the posteal 

 and superior angle of the orbits. Tail longish, not bowed, firm, very 

 slightly rounded. 



Colour and size. Brilliant rufous yellow, merging, as the ground 

 colour, into deep brown upon the cap, shoulders, tertiaries and scapulars 

 where the darker hue preponderates, mottled barwise and otherwise varie- 

 gated by the paler colour. Neck, upper back and breast, broadly striped 

 down the shafts with saturate brown ; downy plumage of the belly, vent, 

 and thighs, immaculate ; long plumes falling over the belly, tibial tufts, 

 and lining of the wings, minutely zigzaged crosswise with brown, there 

 being 8 to 10 lines on each plume which frequently, owing to its dark shaft, 

 exhibits the herring-bone marking : tarsi lunated with brown : toes imma- 

 culate : remiges and rectrices with 6 or 7 mottled bars — dark upon a pale 

 ground in the prime quills and lateral tail feathers — pale upon a dark 

 ground in the central caudal, and lesser wing, feathers ; disc concentrically 

 rayed with brown lines, and zoned posteally by black brown, countermi- 

 nously with the limits of the external ear. Egrets brown like the cap, and 

 picked out with that brilliant ruddy yellow which, amid all the transitions 

 of the plumage, clearly constitutes the ground colour of it : iris golden : 

 bill dusky : talons dusky horn : size 22 inches by 55 to 58 inches : weight 

 3|- lbs. : female somewhat larger : male somewhat darker : but both 

 distinctions trivial. 



Remarks. These birds, when disturbed, fly freely and strongly in the 

 broad glare of day, as (by the way) Otus JEuropceus et JBrachyotiis do ; and 

 though neither the former nor the latter be properly diurnal questers, yet 

 they are alike distinguished by commencing operations long before dark, 

 and by carrying them on in the open country. Our species have their 

 habitation sometimes in a hole or burrow in a bank side, (in which they 

 always breed) and sometimes their domicile consists merely of a perch upon 



