56 



ALTKICIAL GRALLATOKES — HERODIONES. 



Hab. The whole of temperate and tropical America, from British America to Chili and the 

 Falkland Islands. Part of the West Indies; Bermudas. 



Sp. Char. Adult : Pileum, scapulars, and interscapulars, glossy blackish bottle-green ; fore- 

 head, postocular, malar, and gular regions, and medial lower parts, white ; lateral lower parts and 

 neck, except in front, jiale ash-gray, with a sliglit lilaceous tinge ; wings, rump, upper tail-coverts 

 and tail, deeper ash-gray. Occipital plumes pure white. Bill black ; lores and orbits yellowish 

 green ; iris bright red ; legs and feet yellow ; claws brown. [Audubon.] Yotmcf, second year : 



Similar to the adult, but scapulars and interscapulars cinereous, like the wings, and the white of 

 the forehead obscured by the blackish of the crown ; tlie colors generally more sombre, with neck 

 and lower parts more decidedly ashy. Young, first year : Above, grayish br(jwn, with more or less 

 of a cinnamon cast, especially on the remiges, each feather marked with a medial tear-shaped, or 

 wedge-shaped stripe of white, the remiges with small white terminal spots ; rectrices plain ash- 

 gray. Sides of the head and neck, and entire lower parts, striped longitudinally with grayish 

 brown and dull white ; chin and throat plain white medially. Bill light apple-green, the upper 

 half of the maxilla blackish, the mandible with a tinge of the same near the end ; lores light 

 apple-green; eyelids similar, but l)righter — more yellowish, their inner edge black; iris dark 

 chrome-yellow or dull orange ; legs and feet light yellowish apple-green ; claws grayish horn- 

 color.i 



Length about 24.00-26.00; expanse, 44.00. Weight, 1 lb. 14 oz. (Audubon). Wing, 11.00- 

 12-80; tail, 4.20-5.30; culmen, 2.80-3.10; depth of bill, .70-85; tarsus, 3.10-3.40; middle 

 toe, 2.65-3.10 ; bare portion of tibia, .90-1 .40.^ 



The series of specimens at hand is unfortunately too small to justify an opinion as to whether 

 the American Night Herons are really separable as a geographical race from those of the Old 

 World, or whether there are two races in America. Authors recognize a N. ohscurus from the 

 southern part of South America, but ten specimens from that region compared with thirteen from 

 Northern America certainly do not indicate any constant difference, notwithstanding a certain 

 proportion (in this case four of the eight specimens before us, or one half) are more or less darker, 

 though only a small proportion of them are very much darker ; while of the otlier four, two are as 

 light-colored as tlie very palest of northern ones, tlie others being a])out like tlie average. There 

 being no other differences beyond the slightly larger average size of the southern birds (especially 

 noticeal)le in those from tlie high districts of Peru and Chili), we are hardly inclined, for the 

 present, at least, to recognize a var. ohscAirus, but, on the other hand, to look upon the latter as the 

 expression of a tendency to partial melanism affecting this species in certain localities of the regions 

 indicated, this tendency, moreover, perhaps affecting only some individuals iu such localities. 



1 From a specinipn killed August 13, 1879, near Washington, D. C. 



2 Extremes of thirteen examples from North and Middle America. 



