924 



SUN-BITTERN 



" Surinamische Sonnenrej'ger," Ardea helias, the first author to 

 notice this form Avas Fermin, whose account of it, under the name 

 of " Oiseau de Soleil," Avas published at Amsterdam in 1769 (Descr. 

 (fc. de Surinam, ii. p. 192), but was vague and meagre. In 1772, 

 however, it was satisfactorilj^ figured and described in Kozier's 

 Observations sur la Phijsique, &r.. (v. pt. 1, p. 212, pi. 1), as the Petit 

 Paon des roseaux — by which name it was known in Cayenne.^ A 

 few years later D'Aubenton figured it in his well-known series (PL 

 enl. 782), and then in 1781 came BufFon {H. N. Ois. viii. pp. 169, 

 170, pi. xiv.), who, calling it " Le Caurale - on petit Paon des roses," 



SuN-BiTTEEN {Eurypyga helias). 



announced it as hitherto undescribed, and placed it among the Rails. 

 In the same year appeared the above-cited paper by Pallas, Avho, 

 notwithstanding his remote abode, was better informed as to its 

 history than his great contemporarj% whose ignorance, real or 

 affected, of his felloAv-countryman's priority in the field is inexplic- 

 able ; and it must have been by inadvertence that, Avriting " roses " 

 for "roseaux," Buffon turned the colonial name from one that had 

 a good meaning into nonsense. In 1783 Boddaert, equally ignorant 



^ This figure and description were repeated in the later issue of this work in 

 1777 (i. pp. 679-681, pi. 1). 



- The name, he says, was intended to mean Hale d queue, that is, a tailed 

 Rail! 



