156 BULLETIN 135^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The specimen reported to have been taken at Burrard Inlet, Brit- 

 ish Columbia, May, 1879, has been reexamined and found to be the 

 plumed egret, Mesophoyx intermedia.^ 



Egg dates. — Florida: 37 records, January 7 to July 15; 19 records, 

 April 5 to May 6. Texas: 15 records, April 29 to June 12; 8 records. 

 May 5 to 16. Utah: 21 records, April 22 to May 28; 11 records, 

 May 2 to 25. 



EGBETTA CANDIDISSIMA BREWSTERI Thayer and Bangs 

 BREWSTER EGRET 



HABITS 



This large subspecies of the snowy egret is known to inhabit the 

 southern portion of Lower CaUfornia, but its range is not well known 

 and it may be considerably extended. It was recognized and described 

 by Thayer and Bangs (1909). The following quotations from their 

 paper tell us about all we know about it: 



One of the important discoveries made by W. W. Brown, jr., while collecting 

 birds in Lower California, for the Thayer Museum, was finding a large colony 

 of snowy herons nesting at San Jose Island in the Gulf of CaUfornia, about 60 

 miles north of La Paz. From this colony Mr. Brown took several sets of eggs; 

 he also made a dozen skins of the birds, then in full breeding plumage. When 

 unpacking these birds we were at once struck by their large size — especially by 

 their long bills and huge legs — and upon comparison with an extensive series 

 from the southwestern United States we found the differences to be so great that 

 we propose to call the Lower California bird in honor of William Brewster, as a 

 slight acknowledgment of the excellence of his " Birds of the Cape Region of 

 Lower California." Egretta candidissima (Gmel.) was named from Cartagena 

 Colombia, and specimens from eastern South America are said to be even smaller 

 than those from the southeastern United States; unfortunately we have seen no 

 skins from near the type locality, and compare our new Lower California giant 

 with birds from Florida, Georgia, etc. The enormously heavy legs of the new 

 form are enough to distinguish it; but in addition to this it is a much larger bird, 

 the measurements of wing, tail, and bill only partially indicating the great dif- 

 ference in actual bulk between it and the form found in the southeastern United 

 States. In both forms females are rather smaller than males. As to the range 

 of the new form, we can say but little, though it is probable that it extends, or 

 did extend, north to southern California and across the Gulf to western Mexico 



In their tables of measurements it appears that the measurements 

 of the smallest birds from Lower California and those of the largest 

 birds from other places overlap; but the average difference is consid- 

 erable. 



Nesting. — W. W, Brown, jr., collected for Col. John E. Thayer, a 

 series of eggs of this egret in San Jose Island, a small island near La 

 Paz, Lower California, in June, 1908. He supposed that they were 

 the common snowy egret, as this new form had not been recognized 

 at that time, so only a few notes were made. Colonel Thayer teUs 



1 See Kennode, F., The Canadian Field Naturalist, Febraary, 1923. 



