PEALE'S EGRET HERON. 385 



are careful to seek their prey where the weeds are not too high to pre- 

 vent them from observing the approach of an enemy, to escape wliom 

 flight is their only resource. Highly social in their disposition, they 

 travel, fish, and keep together in parties, and build on trees or hanging 

 cliffs, hundreds in company, in retired haunts, where they may expect 

 to enjoy perfect quiet and security. Several of these retreats are 

 celebrated both in America and Europe. The naturalist whose courage 

 and perseverance enable him to penetrate the swamps, and a thousand 

 difficulties that surround one of these recesses, and render them nearly 

 inaccessible, is amply repaid by the astonishing spectacle he witnesses. 

 He finds every branch, every fork, the top of every bush covered with 

 the nests of these birds ; and the ear is stunned with the cries and 

 flapping of the wings of the alarmed multitude. The parents, and such 

 of the young as can fly, at once depart, their numbers obscuring the 

 sky : but their attachment for their offspring overcoming their fears, the 

 parents soon return to their defence, and boldly attack any enemy, so 

 that even the blows of sticks, or the report of the fatal gun has no 

 terror for them. Their nests are made with sticks, and lined with 

 wool ; but if they find a nest already made, they do not take the pains 

 to build a new one. Their young are as voracious and hard to satisfy 

 as themselves. 



The Egret Herons are entirely of a snowy whiteness, without any 

 colored markings on the plumage whatever. We even exclude from 

 them the Ai-dea russata that visits occasionally the south of Europe, 

 and possesses when adult in the greatest degree the long flowing orna- 

 mental plumes. This, with the ralloides, speciosa of Java, &c., we 

 consider as forming a group equivalent in rank to Egret, and we apply 

 to it Boie's name of Buphus. 



Our second subgenus, Botmirus, including the Bittern, Night Herons, 

 and other groups of authors, is characterized by the bill being hardly 

 longer than the head, much compressed, higher than broad, with the 

 upper mandible somewhat curved. Their legs are comparatively short, 

 and the naked space on the tibia restricted : their neck is rather short, 

 thickly and closely covered with long, broad, and loose erectile feathers, 

 and merely downy above : their body is comparatively plump, even 

 fleshy, and sometimes good eating. They are chiefly nocturnal, and 

 iuiunt in marshy and sedgy places. Their food is principally reptiles, 

 insects, worms, fish-spawn, and they even eat vegetables, and are not 

 by any means so destructive as the Herons proper, nor so skilful at 

 fishing. The birds of this subgenus never sit in open places, but on the 

 contrary keep concealed amongst the highest reeds or grasses, and if 

 an enemy appi'oaches their retreat, they either squat on the ground, or 

 escape between the reeds, and never resort to their slow, heavily raised 

 flight, but in the last extremity. Instead of high trees, the Bitterns 



Vol. hi.— 25 



