56 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



can green heron, as the sides of the head are figured and described 

 as distinctly brown or ferruginous. In the reference mentioned to 

 the Cimeha Physica, Sherborn and Iredale*^ have called attention 

 to the transposition of the text and plates for Ardea naevia and 

 A. torquata^ in which the plate of naevia is accompanied by text 

 headed torquata and relating to that species, which follows. The 

 confusion is easily cleared, however, by careful reading of the 

 descriptive portion. 



Green herons were not widespread in abundance in the localities 

 that I visited, but are reputed to be more common in more northern 

 and eastern regions. Their habits are those common to green herons 

 the w^orld over. 



At Puerto Pinasco I noted one or two near the Rio Paraguay 

 during the first week in September, 1920, but saw none in the inte- 

 rior Chaco. In the swamps and lowland lagoons of eastern Uruguay 

 the birds were common. I found them first at San Vicente on 

 January 31, and again on February 2 at the Arroyo Sarandi, to the 

 nortliward. At Lazcano they were common near the Rio Cebollati 

 from February 5 to 9 and were recorded at Rio Negro, Uruguay, 

 from February 14 to 19. A female was secured at San Vicente 

 January 31 and a male at Lazcano February 6. The birds fed in 

 open, marshy swamps or more frequently along shallow pools sur- 

 rounded by thickets of water-loving shrubs. During the heat of the 

 day they retired to shaded perches in trees or thickets near water. 

 Intruders were greeted with complaining squawks, reiterated as the 

 birds flew to more distant perches, and perhaps continued after a 

 point of safety had been reached. One was observed as, in a crouch- 

 ing attitude, it crept slowly, with tail twitching nervously, toward 

 the margin of a channel, intent on reaching striking distance of a 

 school of minnows that played in the shallows. 



SYRIGMA SIBILATRIX (Temminck) 



Ardea sibilatrix Temminck, Nouv. Rec. Planch. Col. Ois., livr. 46, May, 

 1S24, pi. 271. (Paraguay and Brazil.) 



Five specimens of the whistling heron were taken, one of which 

 was preserved as a skeleton. The first one shot, an adult male, 

 killed at Las Palmas, Chaco, July 22, 1920, had the soft parts 

 tinted as follows: Distal third of bill black; remainder light grayish 

 vinaceous tinged with a bluish shade at the base of the mandibular 

 rami; bare skin on side of head light squill blue, shading to deep 

 dull violaceous blue on base of bill, with a narrow band of this color 

 extending across base of culmen; iris olive-buff; tarsus and toes 

 black. Adult males were taken near the Riacho Pilaga at Kilo- 



*' Ibis, 1921, p. 306. 



