386 PEALE'S EGRET HERON. 



place their nest :n a sedgy margin, or among the rushes ; and instead 

 of sticks and wool, they are contented with simpler materials, such as 

 sedge, leaves of water-plants or rushes ; and they lay seven or eight 

 eggs, twice the number of the true Herons. The young do not require 

 for so long a period the parental care, but on the contrary follow the 

 mother after a few- days. When excited, the Bitterns have a curious 

 mode of erecting their loose neck-feathers, causing it to appear very 

 much enlarged. Although well defined as a group, these birds are con- 

 nected with the true Herons by means of intermediate species that 

 might with propriety be placed in either : as an example of the inter- 

 mediate species more allied to the Herons, we might quote the beautiful 

 A. ralloides of southern Europe, which we look upon as the type of 

 the group Bwphui. Of those nearer to Botaurus, A. virescens is an 

 example, with the form of the Herons, but the plumage of the Bitterns : 

 we establish it as the type of a natural though secondary group, to 

 which we cannot do better than apply the name of Herodiag, proposed 

 by Boie. In the subgenus Botaurus also, nature has pointed out 

 several small sections, of which nomenclators have eagerly availed 

 themselves : as among the Herons we have noticed the Egrets, Herons 

 proper, Herodias, and Buphus, we may also indicate the Nycticoraces 

 among the Bitterns, which are distinguished by wearing in the adult 

 state long, tapering occipital feathers ; and the A. stellaris of Europe, 

 together with its close analogue, A. minor of Wilson, may be regarded 

 as the types of a similar small group : another group hardly distinct 

 had been called Crahier by the French, but without any fixed charac- 

 ter : we have divided these Crabiers into two groups, and made them 

 regular by arranging them near the limits of our two subgenera : the 

 larger striated species of Bitterns have also been called Onores, [Tigri- 

 soma, Sw.) 



A third subgenus, which we first instituted, and called Ardcola, con- 

 tains only three species, the smallest of the tribe, and closely allied in 

 form and even markings : one is the European Ardea minuta, the other 

 the American Ardea exilis, and the third a still less, the New Holland 

 Ardea pusiUa. In these the female differs somewhat from the male, 

 and the J'oung is different from both. The bill of these small Herons 

 is much the same as that of the true Heron, being longer than the 

 head, higher than broad at base, and with the upper mandible nearly 

 straight : the neck likewise is elongated and rather slender ; but, as in 

 the Bitterns, it is merely downy above, and thickly covered on the 

 remaining parts with long, loose, and broad erectile feathers : the body 

 is slender, and exceedingly compressed, like that of the Rails, of which 

 they remind one : the legs are comparatively short, but what strikes 

 mos^ as a circumstance extraordinary in the Waders, their tibiie arc 



