I 



PEALE'S EGUET UK HON. 379 



tive members, and to the nature of the plumage of the crest and trains 

 that ornament the adults. The privation of these ornaments in the 

 young, and in the adults also when moulting, increases the difficulty, 

 and has caused them to be taken until lately for distinct species : 

 fortunately this source of confusion has been removed; and the females 

 have been ascertained to be similar to their males. The species of 

 Europe and Northern Asia were therefore upon good grounds reduced 

 t(j two, the Great and the Small, A. alba and A. Garzetta ; but both 

 formerly, and one even till now, were confounded with their two 

 American analogues described by Wilson. In my " Observations on 

 the Nomenclature " of that author, as well as my subsequent writings, 

 without excepting my Synopsis, I admitted the two North American 

 species, and added as a third, the bird now represented in our plate, 

 but I also erred in considering the large American species as the 

 same with the large European : they are in fact no less distinct from 

 each other, however closely related, than Ardea candidissima and A. 

 Garzetta. The name of alba belongs to the European, and that of 

 egretta to the American ; although Illiger, Lichtenstein, (and Tem- 

 minck ?) not perceiving that it was the legitimate egretta of Gmelin 

 and Latham, and having applied that name to the European alba, have 

 given the American the new one of A. leuce. 



Mr. Ord, in the second edition of Wilson's Ornithology, was therefore 

 right in doubting the identity of the two species, and I was mistaken 

 when I declared his doubts unfounded : but he ought not to have quoted 

 as synonymous A. egretta of Temminck, &c. Indeed, I am unacquainted 

 with a single instance in which upon due examination the rule will not 

 hold good, that no bird is common to both continents that docs not 

 inhabit during summer the high northern latitudes, and the Ardea alba 

 and A. egretta are not winter birds, but on the contrary summer visitants 

 of Europe and the United States, and do not even then range far to the 

 north : the European moreover is chiefly found in the east, and hardly 

 ever seen in the west of that continent. This alone ought to have led 

 us to detect the discrepancy. In order to clear up this point before 

 taking up the species which more immediately forms our subject, I think 

 it proper to fix all the species of Egrets of which I have a perfect know- 

 ledge. These are : — 



1. Ardea alba, L. [Ardea Egretta, Temm., Ardea Candida, Briss.), 

 which can easily be distinguished by its large stature, combined with a 

 small crest (which is wholly wanting in the American), a much longer 

 bill and longer tarsi, and the fusco-corneous color of the legs. It is 

 well figured by Naumann, Vog. Nachtr. tab. 46, f. 91, and the young 

 by Roux, Ornithologie Proven^ale, pi. 314 (under the name of Egretta). 

 It inhabits Europe, especially the oriental parts, and is very common in 

 the Caspian Sea, in Asiatic Turkey, &c. 



