5SS 



MINUTE HERON. 



The Minute Bittern has been thus accurately 

 described by Latham : Size of a Thrush in the 

 body : length eleven inches and a half : beak two 

 inches long, greenish, with a pale point: irides 

 straw-colour: crown of the head dark rufous 

 chesnut : sides of the neck rufous ; the feathers 

 pretty l(5ng, and meeting behind, where it is nearly 

 bare : chin and fore-part of the neck white, with a 

 series of feathers on each side the white, of a pale 

 ferruginous colour, each feather marked with a 

 blackish line down the shaft : on the lower part 

 of the neck the feathers are long and loose ; some 

 of them nearly white, and hang over the breast, 

 which is brownish black ; this colour passing up- 

 wards on each side as a crescent to the back ; but 

 the feathers on each side have whitish margins : 

 the back is rufous chesnut, with pale yellow 

 margins : the first and third order of wing-coverts 

 like the back, but plain ; the middle ones fer- 

 ruginous, with a dusky line down each shaft : 

 quills black ; some of the inner prime ones marked 

 with chesnut at the tips ; secondaries the same, 

 with some few of them wholly chesnut : belly, 

 thighs, and vent, white : * tail black : legs green, 

 bare for three quarters of an inch above the 

 knee." 



I have seen several specimens of this species 

 that were killed in Jamaica, and some of them 

 varied a little from the above. One had the back, 



* In some of the specimens shewn to me by a friend, these 

 parts were varied with dusky down the shafts. — J. F. S. 



