“Adult female.—Similar to the male.

“The sequence of plumages in these night herons is not very easy to follow, but the nestling from Mindanao clearly proves that the first plumage is spotted with white and that the quills have broad white tips. Both G. melanolophus and G. goisagi occur on Mindanao, but the latter is doubtless only a winter visitor, while the former bird is resident. The same thing occurs in the Island of Formosa, as has been duly pointed out by Mr. Seebohm, in his ‘Birds of the Japanese Empire,’ where the difference between the two species has been correctly given.

“In the Hume collection there are several rufous-colored birds, which have not yet entirely divested themselves of the wavy immature plumage, while a female from Dibrughur is beginning to put on rufous plumage, though it is still for the most part in the mottled dress of the young. The birds from the Nicobars are decidedly smaller and darker than birds from the mainland, and the wing does not exceed 240 mm.

“Young.—Entirely different from the adult, being brown above, thickly mottled and freckled with dusky blackish, and with longitudinal ochraceous shaft-streaks to the feathers of upper surface; wings like the back; primary-coverts for the most part rufous, freckled with dusky, quills black, tipped with white; primaries with a subterminal shade of rufous; tail-feathers slaty black; crown and nape crested, the feathers black, with arrow-shaped spots or bars of white; sides of face and sides of neck regularly barred with ocherous brown and black, with mesial white spots on the feathers on the sides of the neck; chin and upper throat uniform white; the center of the lower throat and fore neck generally pale vinaceous-buff, varied with black streaks and black mottling or bars, the feathers being browner laterally; sides of the body like the breast, similarly mottled and streaked with white; under tail-coverts white, with scarcely any black markings; under wing-coverts white mottled with dusky; axillars barred with black and white.” (Sharpe.)

“Comparatively rare. Met with about the fish-pens of the natives, especially just at dusk.” (Bourns and Worcester MS.)

“The eggs of the Malay bittern in the collection are of a pale bluish-white color. Two specimens measure respectively: 45.7 by 35.5; 48.2 by 35.5.” (Oates.)

The above-described eggs were collected in Palawan, June 27, by Whitehead.

144. GORSACHIUS GOISAGI (Temminck).
JAPANESE BITTERN.