Todd: The Birds of the Isle of Pines. 185 



The Cuban Green Heron is one of the most abundant of its tribe 

 in the Isle of Pines, where it prefers the fresh or brackish water of the 

 rivers or lagoons to the seacoast. In its habits it is not especially 

 different from the bird of the United States. Messrs. Palmer and Riley 

 found a nest near Nueva Gerona on July 8, containing two eggs on 

 the point of hatching. Nests in process of construction, believed to 

 belong to this species, were found by Mr. Link at Los Indios and Sigu- 

 anea in March and April, built in the mangroves over the water. 



19. Butorides brunescens (Lembeye). Cuban Brown Heron. 



Butorides brunescens Bangs & Zappey, Am. Nat., XXXIX, 1905, 188 (Nueva 

 Gerona, fide Palmer and Riley). — Oberholser, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 

 XXV, 1912, S3 (Nueva Gerona; descr.; crit.). — Cooke, Bull. Biol. Survey, 

 No. 45, 1913, 60 (I. of Pines, in geog. distr.). — Read, Oologist, XXX, 1913, 131 

 (I. of Pines), 132 (West Coast Section, i. e., Santa Barbara). — Read, I. of Pines 

 News, VI, Dec. 27, 1913 (Los Indios and west coast, fairly common; rare in 

 interior; descr.). — Read, Bird-Lore, XVI, 1914, 50 (Santa Barbara). 



"Cuban Green Heron" Read, Oologist, XXVIII, 191 1, 13 (I. of Pines), 114 (West 

 McKinley); XXX, 1913, 123 (Pine River), 125, 127 (Santa Barbara). 



Butorides virescens brunescens Bangs, Auk. XXXII, 1915, 484, part (I. of Pines; 

 crit.). 



Five specimens: Los Indios and Nueva Gerona. 



Two of these are adult males (October 9 and 28), one with many of 

 the scapular plumes glaucous gray, while in the other they are almost 

 entirely bottle-green. The other three specimens are young birds in 

 various stages of the postjuvenal moult, which involves only the body- 

 plumage and wing-coverts. In two specimens shot September 30 

 this moult is just beginning, but in a third, taken February I, it is 

 far advanced. The iris is marked as " light yellow." 



For a full account of this species the paper by Mr. Oberholser, above 

 quoted, should be consulted. While I agree with his conclusions as to 

 the status of this form it may be well to call attention again to the 

 brown-bellied specimen of Butorides virescens ciibaniis noted under the 

 head of that species, and which suggests an approach to the present 

 form. 



Described originally from Cuba, where it was said by Gundlach to 

 be very rare, it has long been suspected to be merely a color-phase 



Green Heron nor any other heron breeds on Swan Island, in the Caribbean Sea, 

 the few individuals which have been observed there being unquestionably migrants, 

 remaining for but a few days at a time. This circumstance of course disposes 

 definitely of Butorides virescens saturatus as a resident form peculiar to the island 

 in question. 



