382 PEALE'S EGRET HERON. 



placed in trees, thickets, aquatic grasses, and some of the species, half 

 domesticated, even nestle on house tops : the female incubates, while 

 the male merely watches and supplies her with food. Both unite in 

 nursing and rearing their young, which remain in the nest until they 

 are full-fledged. The flesh of these Waders is quite unpalatable. 



The genus Ardea, when disembarrassed of the several species forced 

 into it by ancient authors, is a very natural one, differing from the 

 Storks by having the inner toe cleft, whilst they have all the toes semi- 

 palmated at base : the Storks also have the tarsi reticulated, and the 

 middle toe-nail entire, whilst the Herons have the former scutellated 

 and the latter toothed like a saw, to assist in seizing and securing their 

 slippery prey. A peculiarity of the Herons, in which they not only 

 differ from the Storks, but from all other birds, is found in their 

 anatomy : they have but one caecum, like quadrupeds, while other birds 

 have two. The genus Ardea is admitted by all authors, though some 

 modern writers have cut it up into several, which we employ as sub- 

 genera, or groups of still minor importance. Generally divided into 

 three, and by Boie into five, they might with the same propriety be 

 carried to seven or eight ; we recognise no more than three, comprising 

 eight secondary groups. The first, which we call more properly Her^n 

 {Ardea), is well distinguished by its long and slender neck, all well 

 clothed with shortish appressed feathers ; and by having a very large 

 part of the tibia naked. 



The second, called Bittern (Botaurua), has the neck shortish, with 

 loose, longish feathers, and the posterior more or less distichous and 

 lanuginous : the naked part of the tibia is much limited. 



In all the Herons the bill is more or less longer than the head, cleft 

 to beneath the eyes, straight, compressed, conic-elongate, acuminate and 

 very acute, higher than wide, and more or less robust. ^ Both mandi- 

 bles are near their base covered with a kind of very thin cere or mem- 

 brane : the upper is scarcely longer than the lower mandible, and equal 

 in height : it is longitudinally impressed on the sides with a straight 

 furrow obliterated before : the upper ridge is therefore rather distinct 

 and flat at base, terminated by the frontal feathers transversely placed; 

 towards the point the ridge is perfectly smooth, compressed, and slightly 

 and gradually inclined at tip : the edges, nearly vertical, in some species 

 are perfectly entire, in others obliquely and finely denticulated, in all 

 emarginated at the extreme tip : the palate has in the middle a longi- 

 tudinal sword-like process, perfectly straight, which towards the throat 

 is more or less conspicuously doubled : the lower mandible has strong 

 and flattened sides, more or less impressed towards the base ; it is 

 sharply acute, with the edges drawn in, excessively sharp, quite straight, 

 either entire or slightly serrated obliquely : the inferior ridge is slightly 

 compressed, rather acute, and more or less ascending ; the mental angle 



