308 NIGHT HERON. 



Orleans, for being in that city in the month of June, I frequently ob- 

 served the Indians sitting in market with the dead and living young 

 birds for sale ; also numbers of Gray Owls (Strix nebulosa), and the 

 White Ibis [Tantalus alius), for which nice dainties I observed they 

 generally found purchasers. 



The food of the Night Heron or Qua-Bird, is chiefly composed of small 

 fish, which it takes by night. Those that I opened had a large expan- 

 sion of the gullet immediately under the bill, that narrowed thence to the 

 stomach, which is a large oblong pouch, and was filled with fish. The 

 teeth of the pectinated claw were thirty-five or forty in number, and as 

 they contained particles of the down of the bird, showed evidently, from 

 this circumstance, that they act the part of a comb, to rid the bird of 

 vermin, in those parts which it cannot reach with its bill. 



Note. — In those specimens which I have procured in the breeding 

 season, I have taken notice that the lores and orbits were of a bluish 

 white ; but in a female individual, which I shot in East Florida, in the 

 month of March, these parts were of a delicate violet color. 



The Brown Bittern of Catesby (Vol. I., pi. 78), which has not a 

 little confounded ornithologists, is undoubtedly the young of the Night 

 Heron. Dr. Latham says of the former, " we believe it to be a female 

 of the Green Heron. — They certainly differ," continues he, " as Brisson 

 has described them ; but by comparison, no one can fail of being of the 

 opinion here advanced." If the worthy naturalist had had the same 

 opportunities of comparing the two birds in question as we have had, he 

 ■would have been as confident that they are not the same, as we are. — 

 a. Ord. 



