292 BLUE HERON. 



throat whitish, streaked with deep brown ; from the posterior and lower 

 part of the auriculars a broad patch of deep black passes diagonally 

 across the neck, a distinguished characteristic of this species ; the back 

 is deep brown barred and mottled with innumerable specks and streaks 

 of brownish yellow ; quills black, with a leaden gloss, and tipped with 

 yellowish brown ; legs and feet yellow, tinged with pale green ; middle 

 claw pectinated ; belly light yellowish brown streaked with darker, vent 

 plain, thighs sprinkled on the outside with grains of dark brown ; male 

 and female nearly alike, the latter somewhat less. According to Be- 

 wick, the tail of the European Bittern contains only ten feathers ; the 

 American species has invariably twelve. The intestines measured five 

 feet six inches in length, and were very little thicker than a common 

 knitting-needle ; the stomach is usually filled with fish or frogs. 

 This bird when fat is considered by many to be excellent eating. 



Species II. ARDEA C^RULEA. 



BLUE CRANE, or HERON. 



[Plate LXII. Fig. 3.] 



Arct. Zool. No. 351. — Catesby, i., 76. — Le Crahier bleu, Buff, vii., 398. — Sloan. 

 Jam. II., 315. — Lath. Syn. iii., p. 78, No. 45, p. 79, rar. A. — Ardea coerules- 

 cens, Tort. Si/st. p. 379.* 



In mentioning this species in his translation of the Systema Naturce, 

 Turton has introduced what he calls two varieties, one from New Zea- 

 land, the other from Brazil ; both of which, if we may judge by their 

 size and color, appear to be entirely difi"erent and distinct species ; the 

 first being green with yellow legs, the last nearly one half less than the 

 present. By this loose mode of discrimination, the precision of science 

 being altogether dispensed with, the whole tribe of Cranes, Herons, and 

 Bitterns may be styled mere varieties of the genus Ardea. The same 

 writer has still farther increased this confusion, by designating as a dif- 

 ferent species his Bluish Heron {A. ccerulcscens), which agrees almost 

 exactly with the present. Some of these mistakes may probably have 

 originated from the figure of this bird given by Catesby, which appears 

 to have been drawn and colored, not from nature, but from the glim- 

 mering recollections of memory, and is extremely erroneous. These 

 remarks are due to truth, and necessary to the elucidation of the history 

 of his species, which seems to be but imperfectly known in Europe. 



The Blue Heron is properly a native of the warmer climates of the 



* Heron bleudire de Cayenne, Buff. PL Enl. 349, adult. 



