1170 
GOESACHITJS MEL AN OLOPHU S . 
trasting with the blackish-brown sides of the fore neck, which are barred with fulvous, but no mention is made 
of the different colour of the crest. It is important to note that in Mr. Hume’s specimen some of the feathers 
are ferruginous, as this is the main point in which most of the Japanese examples have differed from Indian ; and 
it may be that the rufous colour is a sexual peculiarity ; but it is more likely an individual one, as will be seen 
presently. 
Young nestling (Takow : Mus. Seebohm). Primaries half-grown ; wing 7'0 inches, tarsus 2-7. 
Head and occipital feathers black ; the coronal feathers with pure white mesial lines, and the occipital feathers with 
oval central spots, two on some feathers and one on others ; hind-neck feathers brown, with transverse spots of 
white ; back and scapulars brown, with narrow wavy cross bars of buff, almost obsolete on the back, taking the 
form of wavy pencillings on the wing-coverts, and there overcoming the dark markings ; the winglet, primary- 
coverts, and quills nearly as in the adult, but the latter wanting the rufous near the tips ; tail brown ; chin and 
throat whitish ; fore neck dusky buff, barred with blackish ; on the sides of the neck the barring is narrow ; 
breast buff, barred and irregularly marked with slaty blackish ; lesser under wing-coverts the same, the greater 
series white with dark bases. 
A second nestling of same date (June 1865), and probably a fellow bird, is marked on the head in the same manner, 
but the back is altogether different, the major portion of the feathers being black with a large buff central spot 
and indistinct tippings of rufescent ; the ground-colour of the wing-coverts is more rufous ; surmounting the 
white tips of the primaries there is a small amount of rufous. 
Immature birds almost, if not quite, equal adults in size. An example in the Colombo Museum measures — wing 
10-1 inches ; tail 3-75 ; tarsus 2-5 ; bill at front 1-2. During adolescence the plumage is somewhat similar to that 
of the nestling’s above described, being characterized by the white tips and bars on the crest-feathers and the 
conspicuously marked upper surface. 
An immature example shot near Colombo has the forehead, crown, and long crest-feathers black, with buff tips 
on the head, and white central spots and tips on the crest-feathers ; back and sides of neck and whole upper 
surface dark bluish brown, with irregular wavy bars and edgings of buff and light ferruginous ; upper tail-coverts 
and rump blackish brown, with a white spot near the tip of most of the feathers ; quills and tail much as in the 
adult, but with more of the tips white and less chestnut adjacent to them ; tertials conspicuously mottled like the 
scapulars ; primary wing-coverts chestnut with white tips, edged above with dark pencillings ; chin and throat 
white, the centre of the fore neck conspicuously marked with brown, white, and ferruginous ; the lower neck- 
feathers mottled with ferruginous on the inner W'ebs, and with a longitudinal black border down the shaft, and 
the outer webs white, with yellow edgings ; under surface as above described in the adult. 
Obs. A male from Formosa has the head rufous like the.hind neck, just tinged with ashy, the crest rufous and not so 
long as in other specimens ; the interscapular region and back are uniform dark rusty brown ; the ground-colour of 
the wing-coverts is rufous ; there is a stripe down the throat, and the dark markings of the breast and flanks are very 
bold. Dimensions — wing 102 inches, tarsus 3 - 05. This specimen has some resemblance to a figure of a “ young 
female” in the ‘Fauna Japoniea,’ pi. 20. Two other examples in the “ Swinhoe collection,” from Formosa (not 
sexed), have the head equally dark ; but one is more rufous throughout than the other. The ground-colour of the 
wings of the paler bird is rufescent buff ; the underparts are in a corresponding degree white, lacking the 
rufous edgings on the abdominal feathers. It corresponds with the description above given of the Nicobar female, 
but it has a stripe down the chin. Dimensions of these two birds — wings 103 to 10-5 inches ; tarsus 2'0 ; bill to 
gape 2-4 to 2'7. On the evidence afforded by the first of these three specimens, procured in March, Swinhoe affirms 
that the dark crest in the Eastern form is dropped in winter and red feathers worn instead. I think, however, 
that this solitary evidence is insufficient, particularly as we have a Nicobar female in much the same plumage. It 
would appear rather to be an individual peculiarity ; and I see no reason to consider the Japanese and Formosan 
bird distinct from the Malaccan. Lord Tweeddale, however, affirms that the bill, in all Malaccan examples he has 
examined, is longer and straighter than in a Nagasaki specimen. 
Distribution. — This handsome Bittern, which is a north-east monsoon migrant from Malacca to India 
and Ceylon, was discovered in the latter many years before it was noticed on the mainland. Layard procured 
three specimens about Colombo in November 1852 , and added the species to the avifauna of Ceylon in his 
“ Notes.” Many years after, in the same month in 1860 , Mr. Holdsworth captured a specimen at Aripu; 
and again, in November 1876 , a fine example, now in the Colombo Museum, was shot near Colombo. Another 
specimen was caught on the Colombo lake in November 1875 ; and in October of the following year a male 
