ARDEIDAE 



93 



in most cases, developed in the nnptial period, and the scapular 

 and jugular featliers are elongated, though not decomposed. The 

 Commou Heron (A. ci)irrc('), ranging through Europe, Africa, and 

 Asia, to Japan and Australia, needs no description, but the Purple 

 Heron, u4. (77/ ()?/*■) j»>///7J«7r(i', though it often occurs in liritain, is 

 less well known. It is grey, with black crown and black stripes 

 down the sides (jf the buff neck, chestnut scapulars, rufous, grey, 

 and l)lack jugular plumes, and maroon lireast ; the range lieing from 

 Central and Southern Europe to South Africa, China, and the 

 Phili])pines. A. lierodlas of North America meets in northern 

 South America the white-necked ./. cocoi, hoxh species resembling 

 A. cinerea, but the -__ 



former having rufous 

 thighs and edw of the 

 wing. The wliite A. 

 occidentalis, of Florida 

 and Cuba,^ was for- 

 merly thought to 1)6 

 an instance of dichro- 

 matism. The African 

 A. goliatli has the 

 head and neck rufous 

 and the under surface 

 chiefly maroon. 



The sexes are 

 usually alike ; luit the 

 female has ordinarily 

 shorter plumes, and 

 may be duller, as niay 

 the young, though 

 the stages of plumage 

 are not Aet com- 

 pletely worked out. 

 White or rufous mark- 

 ings are often noticeable, especially in immature specimens of 

 Ardea; there is little red about the head in tliose oi Dichromanassa, 

 though in Hydranassa the amount is greater than in the adult ; 

 those of Florida are generally very white ; and, conversely, wliite 



^ Ridgway, Manual N. Amcr. Birds, 1887, p. 128. A. icurdemanni of Florida 

 is a close all v. 



Fig. 27. — Wbak'-kL-aJ ur 8lioi.'-ljin. Biihaniiwps . 



