322 
ARDEID/E. 
Wide Bay District, Dawson River, Richmond and Clarence Rivers 
Districts, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, West 
and South-West Australia, South Coast New Guinea. {Ramsay.) 
BUTOROIDES MACRORHYNCTIA, Gould. 
Thick-billed Mangrove Bittern. 
Gould, Handbk. Bds. Aust , Vol. ii., sp. 560, p. 316. 
This species used to breed freely at one time in the neighbourhood 
of Sydney. Mr. John Ramsay found several nests in the 
Mangroves on the Parramatta River as early as September 1860. 
The nest is composed of a few sticks placed crosswise on the 
boughs of a Mangrove. Eggs two or three in number for a sitting 
of a pale bluish-green ; length (A) P65 x 1'2 inch ; (B) P75x 
1*3 inch; (C) l - 7 x 1*25 inch. There is a fine series of these 
eggs in the Dobroyde Collection. 
Hab. Wide Bay District, Richmond and Clarence Rivers 
Districts, New South Wales. (Ramsay.) 
BUTOROIDES JAVANICA, Ilorsfield. 
Little Mangrove-Bittern. 
Gould, Handbk. Bds. Aust., Vol. ii., sp. 561, p. 317. 
“ Although generally this is a solitary species, yet at times it 
congregates in considerable numbers. Gilbert found a colony 
breeding on two small islets in Coral Bay, near the entrance of 
the harbour of Port Essington. Their nests, about thirty in 
number, were built both on the mangroves and on the branches 
of the yellow-blossomed Hibiscus; they were very frail structures, 
consisting of a few small twigs placed across each other on the 
horizontal branches, and none of them were more than six feet 
from the ground, each contained either two young birds, or two 
U-2 
