70 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



green ; tibia yellow ; claws black; bare loral space green; iris 

 yellow. Total length, 30 inches; culmen, 5*1; wing, 18*0; tail, 

 7 2 ; tarsus, 6 '8. 



Adult Female. Similar to the male and having the same 

 ornamental plumes, but the nape-plumes are not so long as in 

 the male, and the black on the side of the chest is not quite 

 so pronounced. 



Young Birds. Differ from the adults in being duller and not 

 so pure grey ; the head dark slate-colour, with a small crest cf 

 purplish-black ; neck, as well as the sides of the face and ear- 

 coverts, ashy-grey ; cheeks and throat white ; neck dark slaty- 

 grey, as also the sides of the body, under wing-coverts, and 

 axillaries; lower throat, fore-neck, and chest very broadly 

 streaked with black, especially on the throat, less markedly 

 so on the fore-neck, and represented on the sides of the body 

 by a few black streaks ; the black patch on the sides of the 

 chest in the adults represented by a patch of dusky feathers, 

 streaked with white ; a tinge of rust-colour on the bend of the 

 wing, as well as on the black-streaked feathers of the throat 

 and fore-neck. 



Nestling. A curious little creature, covered with greyish 

 down, with very long and erect filamentous plumes of ashy- 

 grey on the head. 



Range in Great Britain. The Heron is found everywhere 

 throughout the British Islands, and, owing to the protection 

 afforded to it in those places where heronries still exist, it is 

 able to hold its own, though the number of breeding-birds is 

 less than in former times. In Ireland Mr. Ussher says that 

 it breeds in every county, " sometimes in solitary nests, some- 

 times in large heronries in trees, sometimes on the sea-cliffs, 

 and where there are neither trees nor cliffs it has been known 

 to breed in scrub or on the ground in islands in several lakes 

 in Connemara." He has records of more than three hundred 

 places in Ireland which are supposed to contain upwards of 

 four or more nests. 



Range outside the British Islands. The Common Heron is an 

 Old World species, and is almost universally distributed, but 

 becomes much rarer in the east of its winter range, as it is not 



