Gorsachius melanolophus melanolophus (Raffles)
Malay Bittern
Ardea melanolopha Raffles, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, 13, 1822, p. 326. (Type locality, Western Sumatra.)
Nycticorax goisagi Hartlaub and Finsch, Proc. Zool. London, 1868, pp. 8, 118 (Pelew); idem, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1872, p. 89 (Pelew); Wiglesworth, Abhandl. und Ber. Zool. Mus. Dresden, no. 6, 1890-1891 (1891), p. 68 (Pelew).
Nycticorax melanolophus Finsch, Journ. Mus. Godeffroy, 8, 1875, pp. 5, 35 (Palau).
Gorsachius melanolophus Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., 26, 1898, p. 166 (Pelew).
Gorsahius melanolophus melanolophus Hand-list Japanese Birds, rev., 1932, p. 184 (Pelew); Hand-list Japanese Birds, 3d ed., 1942, p. 204 (Palau); Mayr, Birds Southwest Pacific, 1945, p. 302 (Palau).
Gorsachius melanolophus melanolophus Mathews, Syst. Avium Australasianarum, 1, 1927, p. 200 (Pelew).
Geographic range.—India, Ceylon, southern China, Formosa, Indochina, Malaysia. In Micronesia: Palau Islands—exact locality unknown.
Remarks.—Captain Tetens obtained a specimen of this bittern at the Palau Islands which was reported on by Hartlaub and Finsch (1868a:8, 1868b:118). It is probably a rare straggler to western Micronesia. The specimen has not been seen by me; it may be of the subspecies G. m. kutteri (Cabanis), which is known from the Philippine Islands.