Yellow-crowned Night Heron 89 



Yellow-crowned Night Heron. Nyctanassa violacea. 



A.O.U. Checklist no 203— Colorado Records — Ridgway 79, p. 233 ; 

 Cooke 97, p. 62 ; Warren 09, p. 33. 



Description. — Adult — Crown and a stripe behind the eye white, tinged 

 with tawny ; rest of the head all round black ; general colour above 

 and below greyish-blue, the feathers of the wings and scapulars with 

 darker centres and paler edges ; an occipital crest of 2 to 3 narrow 

 filamentous plumes, and the scapulars elongated, lanceolate and 

 partly decomposed ; iris yellow, bill and legs black. Length 24 ; 

 wing 12-25 ; tail 4-75 ; culmen 2-9 ; tarsus 3-8. 



The female is slightly smaller, wing 11-0 ; a young bird is greyish- 

 brown streaked and spotted with bufTy, below streaked brown and 

 white, crown black, streaked with white or buffy. 



Distribution. — From South Carolina, southern Illinois and Lower 

 CaUforhia south through the West Indies and Central America to 

 Brazil ; casually further north. 



In Colorado the Night Heron is a very rare straggler ; there was an 

 adult male in Mrs. Maxwell's collection known to have been kiUed in 

 Colorado, and this constituted the only record until recently, when 

 J. W. Frey obtained a single female out of a bunch of five on the 

 Arkansas River just above Salida, May 1st, 1908. This specimen, 

 reported by Warren, was presented by him to the Colorado College 

 Museum. 



ORDER PALUDICOL^. 



This order contains the Cranes and Rails of our fauna, 

 together with several other families which do not here 

 concern us. It is such a varied assortment that it is 

 quite incapable of definition by anatomical characters — 

 still less so by external characters, and a reference must 

 be made to the diagnoses of the two families. 



Key of the Families and Genera. 



A. Larger birds ; wing over 15 ; toes short and webbed at the 



base ; hind toe set well above the others (Gruidce). Grus, p. 90. 



B. Smaller birds ; wing imder 10 ; toe.=; long, slender, not webbed, 



but sometimes lobed (Rallidce). 

 a. Toes simple, no lateral marginal lobes. 



a^ Bill longer ; culmen exceeding middle toe and claw. 



Rallus, p. 93. 



