on the Birds of F^an Domlnxjo. 339 



with. In the swamp at Sanchez it was to be found in hundreds. 

 On my shooting-trips up the river it was a constant companion, 

 flying up within shot at every few yards. Tame and confiding, 

 it often let the boat pass witliin 20 feet of it. It gave some- 

 times a feeble heron-like squeal. When I first saw this bird 

 I could hardly believe that the slaty -blue ones belonged to 

 the sa\ne species as the white ; but they were always together, 

 sometimes in flocks of 15 or 20 feeding in tlie swamp, and 

 their habits seemed similar, except that the white ones were 

 certainly more confiding than the blue ; but if the white ones 

 are the young of the blue, this might be expected. It seemed 

 easier to believe that they were male and female and not old 

 and young, for I never once, out of many hundred birds, saw 

 one with a distinctly intermediate plumage. It w as far more 

 common to see a pair of white and blue ones fly up together 

 than it was to see two blue ones, and I counted to see whether 

 the white or the blue were the commonest, and found them 

 about equal. I was sorry not to have had more time in which 

 to have studied them. 



-f 49. Ardea virescens. 



(Cory, op. cit. p. 155.) 



This species, though common, was far less so than the 

 preceding. I seldom saw more than one at a time, and 

 this one was generally sitting stock-still on a branch or a 

 stump, near the water-level, with its head sunk deep between 

 its shoulders, showing no signs of its long neck. 



Suddenly, as the boat drew near, the bird's head appeared 

 to be flying ofl" without the body ; but the wings opened and 

 the bird followed, seemingly twice as long as it was before, 

 and, waking the echoes with a loud, harsh, angry screech, 

 would settle behind some bushes and peer over the top with 

 its outstretched neck until the boat had passed. 



A gentleman on the staff of the railway at Sanchez on the 

 18th June gave me a graphic description of a heronry 

 belonging to this species which he had seen the day before, 

 on a little island not 30 feet in diameter which I had visited 

 more than once early in the year at the mouth of the Baracota 



(b 



