465 



EGRETTA ALBA. THE YELLOW-BILLED WHITE 



EGRET. 



GREAT WHITE HERON. 



Ardea alba. Linn. Syst. Nat. I. 239. 



Ardea alba. Latb. Ind. Ornitb. II. 695. 



Great White Heron. Mont. Orn. Diet. 



Heron Aigrette. Ardea Egretta. Temm. Man. d'Ornitb. II. 672. 



Great White Heron. Ardea alba. Selb. Illustr. Brit. Ornith. II. 18. 



Ardea alba. Great White Heron. Jen. Brit. Vert. Anim. 187. 



Egretta alba. Bonap. Comp. List. 47. 



Length nearly three feet and a half ; occipital feathers 

 very slightly elongated ; dorsal plumes with the shaft stiffish, 

 straight, and extending a little beyond the tail ; plumage 

 white; bill yellow ; bare preocidar space verdigris green; 

 feet black. 



Male. — This species, although slightly inferior in size to 

 the Black-billed Egret, is so very similar to it, that the one 

 can be distinguished from the other only by the colour of the 

 bill, and some differences in the length of the tarsi and the 

 bare part of the tibiae. The bill is long, stout, compressed, 

 tapering ; the upper mandible with its dorsal line straight 

 for two-thirds from the base, then slightly declinato-convex, 

 the ridge broad at the base, narrow but convex in the rest of 

 its extent, the nasal depression narrow, elongated, with a 

 groove from its fore part extending nearly to a third from the 

 tip, the sides convex, the edges direct and sharp ; lower 

 mandible with the angle long and extremely narrow, the 

 dorsal line slightly ascending, the sides sloping outwards and 

 concave, the edges sharp, the tip acute. The gape-line 

 straight, commencing under the centre of the eye, at first 



G G 



