456 ARDEA PURPUREA. 



can rank only as an accidental straggler. Its food is said to 

 consist of frogs, fishes, small quadrupeds, and young birds. 

 M. Temminck states that it nestles among reeds or on bushes, 

 seldom on trees, and lays three eggs. One in my collection 

 is much inferior in size to those of the common Heron ; of a 

 broadly elliptical form, having both ends alike, its length 

 two inches and a twelfth, its greatest breadth an inch and 

 seven-twelfths, its colour pale greenish-blue. 



Young. — According to M. Temminck, " the young are 

 destitute of crest, or have only slightly elongated reddish 

 feathers in place of it. The elongated feathers at the lower 

 part of the neck and those on the back are also wanting. 

 The forehead is black ; the nape and cheeks pale red ; the 

 throat white; the fore part of the neck yellowish-white, 

 with numerous longitudinal black spots ; the feathers of the 

 back, scapulars, wings, and tail blackish-grey, bordered with 

 light red ; the belly and tibiae whitish ; a large portion of 

 the upper mandible blackish ; the lower, the bare skin 

 around the eyes, and the iris of a very pale yellow." 



Remarks. — The numerous errors into which the older 

 writers fell with regard to this bird, which some of them 

 have described in its different stages as forming several dis- 

 tinct species, it is hardly worth while to point out. My 

 description of the adult has been taken from a Bengal speci- 

 men in my collection. The toes of this Heron are propor- 

 tionally more elongated than those of the other species, and 

 resemble those of the Bitterns, although in other respects it 

 agrees with the true or typical Herons. 



Specimens of this species have been obtained in the 

 southern and eastern coasts of England — in Cornwall, Devon- 

 shire, Norfolk, and Suffolk. In the Magazine of Natural 

 History, vol. x. p. 116, Mr. Hore states that, " some time in 

 the month of November, 1835, a Purple-crested Heron was 

 obtained on the borders of a large piece of water, known by 

 the name of the King's Fleet, near the mouth of the Wood- 

 bridge river, in Suffolk. I know of two other instances of 

 this species of Heron occurring in this county ; I have also 



