164 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Maynard (1896) still maintaiQed, even in the latest edition of his 

 book, that pealei was a good species; his theory was based on the 

 fact that the two color phases seemed to be differently distributed; 

 he found the white birds exceedingly common on the east coast of 

 Florida, where he found only a single reddish specimen in two seasons; 

 while on the west coast he found the reddish egret very abundant 

 below Tampa Bay, but did not see a single white bird. In the Florida 

 Keys and in the Bahamas he found both phases, as well as many birds 

 of mixed plumage. 



W. E. D. Scott (1881, 1887, and 1888) was always a firm believer 

 in the color phase theory; he found both phases on the west coast of 

 Florida, though somewhat differently distributed, where they were 

 abundant in the early eighties; he also found a number of birds in 

 mixed plumages. His assistant Mr. Devereux, "found young in both 

 plumages in the same nest where the parents were both blue birds." 



We found the white birds exceedingly scarce on the coast of Texas 

 except on Green Island in the southern part of Laguna Madre. Here 

 Capt. R. D. Camp has made a special study of the white phase 

 problem for three years and he summarizes his findings, as follows: 



I watched with a great deal of interest a pair of birds composed of a normal 

 male and a white female, at least the white bird was the one which spent most 

 of the time incubating. The three eggs laid in the nest were normal in every 

 respect and produced three normal colored young. Out of the hundreds of 

 pairs of reddish egrets breeding on the island, I have yet to find two white birds 

 mated. Of about 15 nests which I have observed containing some white-phase 

 young, never has there been a case where more than 75 per cent of the same 

 clutch were white. In only one case where one of the parent birds was white 

 have I seen a white young, and in this case three of the four were normal. In 

 one instance a pair of normal birds produced three white and one normal young. 

 In the majority of cases where there were white young in the nests, the number 

 of white did not exceed one. 



Although the irregular distribution of the white phase suggests 

 the idea that it may be a distinct species; and although the mixed 

 plumages suggest hybridism; the raising of white young, where both 

 parents are reddish egrets, seems to clinch the color phase theory. 



Although material for study is scarce in collections, white phase 

 birds apparently pass through the same sequence of molts and plum- 

 ages as the colored birds. They are pure white at all ages, but the 

 full development of plumes and the parti-colored bill are not ac- 

 quired until the second prenuptial molt, when the young bird is 

 nearly 2 years old. 



Food. — Being a bird of the seacoast the reddish egret probably 

 obtains most, if not all, of its food in salt water. Large numbers of 

 these birds may be seen at times standing in the shallow waters around 

 their breeding grounds, or way off on the the mud banks or sand 



