YELLOW-CROWNED HERON. 315 



swampy woods, and feeding only in the night. It builds in societies, 

 making its nest with sticks among the branches of low trees, and lays 

 four pale blue eggs. The species is not numerous in Carolina, which, 

 with its solitary mode of life, makes this bird but little known there. 

 It abounds on the Bahama Islands, whore it also breeds, and great num- 

 bers of the young, as we are told, are yearly taken for the table, being 

 accounted in that quarter excellent eating. This bird also extends its 

 migrations into Virginia, and even farther north ; one of them having 

 been shot a few years ago on the borders of the Schuylkill below 

 Philadelphia. 



The food of this species consists of small fish, crabs and lizards, par- 

 ticularly the former ; it also appears to have a strong attachment to the 

 neighborhood of the ocean. 



The Yellow-crowned Heron is twenty-two inches in length, from the 

 point of the bill to the end of the tail; the long flowing plumes of the 

 back extend four inches farther ; breadth from tip to tip of the expanded 

 wings thirty-four inches ; bill black, stout, and about four inches in 

 length, the upper mandible grooved exactly like that of the common 

 Night Heron ; lores pale green ; irides fiery red ; head and part of the 

 neck black, marked on each cheek with an oblong spot of white ; crested 

 crown and upper part of the head white, ending in two long narrow 

 tapering plumes of pure white, more than seven inches long ; under 

 these are a few others of a blackish color ; rest of the neck and whole 

 lower parts fine ash, somewhat whitish on that part of the neck where it 

 joins the black ; upper parts a dark ash, each feather streaked broadly 

 down the centre with black, and bordered with white ; wing quills deep 

 slate, edged finely with white ; tail even at the end, and of the same ash 

 color ; wing coverts deep slate, broadly edged with pale cream ; from 

 each shoulder proceed a number of long loosely webbed tapering 

 feathers, of an ash color, streaked broadly down the middle with black, 

 and extending four inches or more beyond the tips of the wings ; legs 

 and feet yellow ; middle claw pectinated. Male and female, as in the 

 common Night Heron, alike in plumage. 



I strongly suspect that the species called by naturalists the Cayenne 

 Night Heron [Ardea Cayanensis), is nothing more than the present, 

 with which, according to their descriptions, it seems to agree almost 

 exactly. 



