Part 70

"Adult male.--Above dark slaty gray, feathers of back and scapulars somewhat pointed and with a slight hoary gloss; wings and tail blackish, glossed with slate-color on the coverts, and with green on some of the latter and on the quills; crown and crest-plumes slaty gray; sides of face and cheeks black, the latter slightly mottled with rufous; from the hinder part of the cheeks a band of golden straw-color runs down the sides of the neck, the lower feathers being elongated; throat and fore neck prettily variegated with chestnut, black, and white, the chestnut predominating on the outer webs of the feathers and the white on the inner webs, with a longitudinal streak of black at the end of the latter, the long overlapping feathers on the sides of the chest being slaty gray with white margins, so that the general appearance of the throat and chest is streaked; remainder of under surface of body slaty gray, including the under wing-coverts, axillars, and quill-lining. 'Bill dusky reddish brown, lighter below; facial skin purplish brown; eyelids bluish; feet dark brown; claws dark horn-color; iris golden brown or pale red.' (Oates). Length, 508; culmen, 84; wing, 203; tail, 63; tarsus, 67; middle toe with claw, 76.

"Adult female.--Does not differ from the male. Length, 508; culmen, 31; wing, 203; tail, 68; tarsus, 66; middle toe with claw, 74.

"The slaty gray shade in the plumage appears to be a sign of the breeding season, as some of the winter specimens are black with a greenish gloss on the upper surface.

"Young birds are much browner than the adults, and can immediately be recognized by their more freckled appearance, the feathers of the upper surface having ochraceous margins. The mottling of the rufous on the neck is much as in the adult birds but there is more white and less rufous, and the chest-feathers are much more broadly edged with white; the breast is dusky brown as well as the sides of the body; the abdomen is white; the sides of the face and ear-coverts are chestnut, with a little streak of white at the base of the mandible.

"Nestling.--Similar in color to the young bird described above, but very much shaded with rufous, and having a great deal of rufous on the sides of the face; the crown covered with down of an ocherous color, the throat and chest very rufous." (Sharpe.)

Genus BOTAURUS Stephens, 1819.

The genus Botaurus is distinguished by its large size, comparatively short and stout bill and heavy legs; culmen much less than tarsus, the latter less than middle toe with claw; secondaries and scapulars nearly or quite as long as primaries.

153. BOTAURUS STELLARIS (Linnæus).

COMMON BITTERN.

Ardea stellaris Linnæus, Syst. Nat. ed. 10 (1758), 1, 144. Botaurus stellaris Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1898), 26, 253; Hand-List (1899), 1, 204; Blanford, Fauna Brit. Ind. Bds. (1898), 4, 405, fig. 99 (head); Oates, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1902), 2, 134; McGregor, Bur. Government Laboratories (1905), 34, 29; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 36.

Luzon (Babbitt). Temperate Palaearctic region, northwestern India, Burma, China.

"Adult male.--Above tawny-yellow and black, the latter predominating and occupying the center of the feathers, the sides of which are tawny-buff, freckled and irregularly barred with black; lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts pale tawny-buff, mottled with bars or cross-lines of dusky brown; marginal wing-coverts rufous, regularly barred across with black; median and greater coverts tawny-buff, with irregular bars or arrow-shaped markings of blackish brown, much less pronounced on the greater coverts, all of which have a rufescent tinge near the base; alula, primary-coverts, and quills blackish, barred with rufous, the bars somewhat broken up on the inner webs of the quills, which are also paler; the inner secondaries like the scapulars, being tawny-buff on their edges and mottled in a similar manner; tail-feathers tawny-buff, irregularly mottled with black bars or cross-markings, more pronounced on the middle of the feathers; crown of head uniform black, with a frill of erectile plumes on the nape, these being tipped with tawny-buff, and the pale tips crossed with lines of black; eyebrow, sides of face, and sides of the neck tawny-buff, the eyebrow uniform except on the under edge, where the feathers are barred with black; ear-coverts scarcely marked at all, but the plumes of the sides of the neck narrowly barred with black, and elongated into a frill which covers the hind neck, the latter being clothed in dense down of a tawny-buff-color; the feathers below the eye, and a streak along the cheeks and down the sides of the neck, black; malar line of feathers and throat creamy white, with a central line of reddish buff feathers slightly mottled with black bases; the lower throat also creamy white, with four or five tolerably defined broad lines of tawny-buff and black-mottled feathers; the lower part of the ruff on the fore neck with narrow wavy lines of black; the breast covered with down of a tawny-buff-color, and hidden by a large patch of loose plumes on each side of the chest, which are mostly black with tawny-buff margins; remainder of under surface creamy white, streaked with black centers to the feathers, the black markings slightly broken up with mottlings of tawny-buff; thighs and under tail-coverts with scarcely any markings whatever; under wing-coverts and axillars tawny-buff, the former narrowly lined with blackish, the axillars more distinctly barred with dusky blackish. 'Bill greenish yellow; legs and feet yellowish green; claws dark brown; iris yellow; bare space before the eye yellowish green.' (Seebohm.) Length, about 610; culmen, 69; wing, 330; tail 112; tarsus, 96.

"Two of the three specimens collected by Mr. Robert Bergman at Yokohama are apparently young birds and have the primary-coverts and quills almost uniform, with a certain amount of rufous mottlings confined to the inner webs; in this state of plumage B. stellaris has a great resemblance to B. poeciloptilus but is always to be distinguished from the last-named bird by the tawny-colored frill on the sides of the neck, instead of the smoky brown one peculiar to the Australian bird." (Sharpe.)

Order ANSERIFORMES.

DUCKS AND GEESE.

Bill stout, compressed at base, flattened at tip, which is blunt or rounded or rarely spatulate (Spatula), and covered with soft, leathery membrane except the hard overhanging "nail" at tip; nostril from subbasal to subterminal, open and usually oval; neck small and usually long; body compact, heavy, flattened, densely covered with short feathers; wings stiff, strong, and rather pointed; tail usually short and rounded and fairly stiff, never forked and but rarely long and pointed (Dafila); legs short; toes stout and palmate; hind toe simple or lobate. Eggs six to one dozen or more, white, cream-color, or light buff; nest usually lined with down from the breast of the old bird; young covered with down and able to swim at birth.

Family ANATIDÆ.

Characters same as those given for the Order.

Subfamilies.

a1. Smaller; culmen less than 25 mm.; throat, breast, and abdomen white. ... Plectropterinæ (p. 185) a2. Larger; culmen more than 32 mm.; throat, breast, and abdomen not uniform in color.

b1. Head, neck, and breast not of a uniform color; no occipital crest. ... Anatinæ (p. 187) b2. Head, neck, and breast brownish black, in adult male glossy black; adult male with a pointed occipital crest. ... Marilinæ (p. 197)

Subfamily PLECTROPTERINÆ.

Genus NETTAPUS Brandt, 1836.

Members of this genus are distinguished by their small size and short stout bill.

154. NETTAPUS COROMANDELIANUS (Gmelin).

INDIAN DWARF GOOSE.

Anas coromandeliana Gmelin, Syst. Nat. (1788), 1, pt. 2, 522. Nettopus coromandelianus Salvadori, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1895), 27, 68; Blanford, Fauna Brit. Ind. Bds. (1898), 4, 433, fig. 110 (head); Sharpe, Hand-List (1899), 1, 209; Oates, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1902), 2, 144; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 36.

Pa-ti-kí, Manila.