650 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
the peculiar small fish known as the “big-eye bompy” (Periophthalmus koel- 
reutert). The eggs, two, sometimes three in number, are laid in October after 
the rains begin to abate. 
Nycticorax leuconotus (Wagler). White-backed Night Heron 
Ardea leuconotus Wagler, Syst. Av., Ardea, no. 33, p. 189, 1827: Senegambia. 
Head and pointed neck feathers black; a stripe under eye, the center of back, and center of 
throat white; neck reddish brown and gray; wing-coverts, rump, and tail gray brown; wings 
gray; below pacieed gray-brown and white. Africa south of the Sahara to the Zambesi. 
Biittikofer (1885) speaks of collecting this heron at Fisherman Lake, Cape 
Mount, and Stampfli obtained one on the Junk River. On November 20, two 
very young birds were brought to Loring Whitman at Monrovia. We did not 
notice it away from the swamps and lagoons of the immediate coast. Chubb 
(1906) includes the common Night Heron, Nycticorax nycticorax, in his list of 
Liberian birds, probably based on the old record of Schweitzer, but although it 
may occur, for it breeds over much of Africa, the specimen if in existence should 
be reidentified. 
Tigriornis leucolopha (Jardine). White-crested Bittern 
Tigrisoma leucolopha Jardine, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 1, vol. 17, p. 86, 1846: Old Calabar. 
Size medium, general color fulvous, broadly barred on head, neck, scapulars, and wing-coverts 
with greenish black, wing feathers black tipped with white; back, upper tail-coverts, and tail black. 
Head with a white crest. West Africa from Sierra Leone to the Congo. 
This seems to be a rather uncommon species. Biittikofer found it at Fisher- 
man Lake, Cape Mount, on both his visits there, and mentions its loud booming 
heard especially at night, a noise attributed by the natives to a large snake or a 
crocodile! Two were collected at some distance up the Du River by the same 
naturalist, who found them sitting in trees close to the river bank. They nest 
in October after the rains abate, for Stampfli secured a nestling on the Junk 
River in November; while in Sierra Leone, at Rotifunk, Kemp (1905) found 
downy young in the same month. 
Ixobrychus minutus payesii (Hartlaub). Red-necked Little Bittern 
Ardea payestt Hartlaub (ex Verreaux), Journ. f. Orn., vol. 6, p. 42, 1858: Senegal, Casamanse. 
A very small heron, length about 12 inches; male with crown, back, and tail blackish with a 
greenish sheen, sides of head and neck reddish brown, neck, sides, and belly and lesser wing-coverts 
ocher yellow, bend of wing reddish brown; an indistinct whitish line on either side of throat. 
Female with only the crown blackish, neck chestnut, the back reddish brown, belly with a few 
blackish streaks. Africa south of the Sahara. 
Of this African race of the Little Bittern, there appears to be no previous 
record. It is here included on the basis of a female sent from Liberia by Rev. 
George Schwab who secured it together with other specimens during a visit to 
Liberia in 1928. The precise locality is not given. No doubt it breeds rarely in 
the country, for Reichenow found its nests on the Gold Coast. 
