380 PEALE'S EGRET HERON. 



2. The second species is Ay-dea Egretta, Gmel. Lath. {Ardea leuee, 

 Temm.), the one figured by Wilson, whose tall stature allows it to be 

 confounded with the preceding, from which, however, it may be readily- 

 distinguished by its perfectly smooth head, its light orange and shorter 

 bill, and black legs. It is found both in North and South America, 

 being mentioned by d'Azara, and we have ourselves received it from 

 Surinam. 



3. The third is Ardea Jlavirostris, Temm., not yet figured. A smaller 

 bird, with black legs also, at once known from its two above-mentioned 

 close analogues ; from the European by its yellow bill, from the American 

 by its small crest. It is found in Southern Africa and the Australian 

 Islands. 



4. The fourth Egret in point of stature is the one we are treating of, 

 well distinguished by its bill, which is flesh color at base, besides the 

 different texture of the ornamental feathers. 



As a fifth species we shall cite the Ardea candidissima of Wilson, 

 which is the analogue of the Ardea G-arzetta of Europe, figured by 

 Roux, Orn, Prov. pi. 315. Both these are alike in stature and dimen- 

 sions, and differ only, as is well known, by the crest, which in the latter 

 consists of but two or three elongated, narrow, subulate feathers ; while 

 in the American the crest is formed of numerous elongated pendulous 

 feathers, with loose flowing barbs. 



Specimens that we have received from Java under the name of Ardea 

 nigripes, Temm., we consider as the young of A. Garzetta, and are con- 

 firmed in this opinion by the fact of young birds that we possess of the 

 American candidissima that stand precisely in the same relation to this 

 species that the supposed nigripes does to the Qarzetta.* 



The family of the Herodii, Cultrirostres, or Ardeidce, especially when 

 the group G-ruince is withdrawn, and restricting it to our former Ardeince, 

 is a highly natural one. It still comprises, it is true, many aberrant 

 genera, birds of peculiar forms, and remarkable for their strange and 

 oddly shaped bills, though still not so far different as to rank them more 

 properly with any other class ; and in their general structure, as well as 

 their habits and dispositions, too much identified with these to justify 

 their separation into an independent family. But the Gruina^, of which 

 the Crane is the type, bear a strong analogy, and even in many respects 

 so much afiinity to the Gallinaceous birds, having shorter feet, vegetable 

 food, and even their habits being terrestrial, that we think proper to 

 unite them as a subdivision or subfamily with the Alectrides. The arti- 

 ficial character (which, as we are not now treating of them, is all that 



* I have lately been informed of the discovery of two new European species of 

 Egrets, one from Sardinia, the other from Moldavia, of which the names and char- 

 acters are not yet given. 



