COMMON BITTERN.

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. pœciloptilus 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.[17]

Family ANATIDÆ.

Characters same as those given for the Order.