Ill 



ARDEA MEGACEPHALA MILNE-EDWARDS. 



"Butors" Leguat, Relation du Voyage (1708). 



Ardea megacephala Milne-Edwards, Ann. Sci. Nat. (5) XIX, 1874, p. 10. 



LEGUAT'S description, here translated, is as follows : — " We had Bitterns 

 as big and as fat as capons. They are tamer and more easily caught 

 than the ' gelinotes.' " He also says, " The lizards often serve as prey 

 for the birds, especially for the Bitterns. When we shook them down from 

 the branches with a pole, these birds ran up and gobbled them down in front 

 of us, in spite of all we could do to prevent them ; and even if we only pretended 

 to do so they came in the same manner and always followed us about." 



Milne- Edwards remarks, among other notes, that " This bird is not a 

 true Bittern, but its head is so large and its feet so short that it is easy to 

 understand that Leguat should have called it so. 



The bony structure of the head is remarkable on account of its massive 

 and thick proportions ; the skull itself is strongly enlarged posteriorly, and the 

 temporal fossae are bordered by very pronounced ridges, especially those on 

 the occipital region. The upper side of the skull is hardly convex, and the 

 interorbital region is large, but only slightly depressed along its middle line. 

 The bill is stout, almost straight, a good deal enlarged at its base and rounded 

 beneath. The nostrils are large and preceded by a large groove, which extends 

 very far towards the tip. 



It is impossible to confound this skull with that of any Bittern, the latter 

 having the beak relatively slender and only barely exceeding the skull in length. 

 These also have the skull much constricted at the temporal region. The fossil 

 skull from Rodriguez therefore presents characters essentially those of a 

 Heron, but differs from all known species in its massive appearance. In the 

 Grey, Purple and Goliath Herons, as well as in the Egrettes, the head is 

 narrower, more elongated, the bill less conical and less strong. In Ardeu 

 atricollis, now inhabiting Madagascar, the beak much resembles that of our 

 extinct species, but it is longer and less enlarged at the base. The interorbital 

 area is much wider, while on the other hand the hinder portion of the skull 

 is narrower and more elongated, which gives to the skull a totally different 

 aspect. 



The feet relatively to the head are extremely short, and from this I 

 conclude that we know no species of Heron which can be compared to that 

 of Rodriguez. Nevertheless, the tarso-metatarsus presents all the characters 



