LOUISIANA HERON. 51 



Assembled with them were numbers of the Night Herons, 

 and two or three of the purple-headed species. Great quan- 

 tities of egg-shells lay scattered under the trees, occasioned 

 by the depredations of the crows, who were hovering in the 

 vicinity. Wherever they happen to wander through the 

 marshes, or along the borders of the rivers and inlets, they 

 regularly return in the evening to their favorite roost in the 

 cedars of the beach. 



The young, of both this and the preceding species, are 

 generally fat, and esteemed by some as palatable food. 



The length of the Snowy Heron is about 2 feet 1 inch ; the alar 

 extent 3 feet 2 inches. The bill is black, and 4 and a quarter inches 

 long. The space from the nostril to the eye bright yellow. Iris 

 orange. The head is largely crested with loose unwebbed feathers, 

 nearly 4 inches in length ; another tufl of the same covers the breast. 

 Shafts of the great dorsal train feathers G or 7 inches long, very 

 elastic, tapering to the extremities, and thinly set with long, slender 

 bending threads or fibres easily agitated by the slightest motion of 

 the air; these shafts curl upwards at the ends. Legs black; feet 

 yellow, claws black, the middle one pectinated. 



LOUISIANA HERON. 



(Ardea ludoviciana, Wilson, (not of Latham.) viii. p. 13. pi. 64. 

 fig. 1. [adult.] Phil. Museum, No. 3750.) 



Sp. Charact. — Crested; slate-colored; back, rump, and beneath, 

 white ; neck feathers purplish ; a dorsal train of long capillary, 

 purplish plumes. — Young without the ornamental feathers. 



This rare species of Heron is confined to the warmer 

 parts of the Union, from whence it migrates, at the approach 

 of w^inter, probably to the tropical parts of America. It is 

 occasionally found in the river marshes of South Carolina, 

 and is not unfrequent along the inundated borders of the 

 Mississippi, below New Orleans, where it is said to breed, 

 constructing its nest in trees. Its habits agree very nearly 



