SNOWY EGRET. 47 



County. Ind. (Ridgway). The nesting of this species, June, 1895, 

 at Lincoln, Nebr. (Eiche), was probably fortuitous. 



West of Louisiana numbers of this species become less, though 

 it nested at favorable localities along the whole Texas coast, and 

 there was a large colony near the mouth of the Rio Grande (Merrill) ; 

 it also nested up some of the larger streams to Tarkington (Gaut) 

 and Texarkana (Oberholser). As a breeder it was absent from the 

 whole Rocky Mountain region and Pacific slope of the United States, 

 the northern limit of the breeding range on the Pacific being found 

 near San Jose Island, Lower California (Brown), and Rosario, 

 Sinaloa (Nelson). 



The snowy egret nested on both coasts of Mexico and on the larger 

 interior waters. These breeding haunts were invaded by the plume 

 hunters after the United States birds had been killed off and for 

 several years furnished large shipments of aigrettes. Even as late 

 as 1900 some of these colonies had not yet been destroyed. In the 

 spring of that year, at Paligada, Tabasco, the owner of a tract of 

 land containing a large heronry sold for a thousand dollars the right 

 to shoot them, and the birds were exterminated that season. The 

 breeding range also included the lower parts of Central America and 

 South America, south to Valdivia, Chile (Boeck), and to Cape San 

 Antonio. Argentina (Gibson). The species was also a common 

 breeder in the Greater Antilles and less common in the Lesser An- 

 tilles, but seems to have been rare in the Bahamas, being recorded 

 only from Inagua (Cory) and Great Bahama (Cory), while only 

 a few specimens have been taken in Bermuda at the times of spring 

 and fall migration. 



The snowy egret has the same habit as the larger egret (Herodias 

 egretta) of migrating north of the breeding grounds, though the 

 number of such migrants has not been so great nor have the wander- 

 ings been so extensive as in the case of the larger relative. There 

 are some half dozen records for Long Island, N. Y. (Braislin), and 

 one for Buffalo, N. Y. (Eaton). The species is recorded from Strat- 

 ford, Hartford, Saybrook, and Groton Long Point, Conn. (Mer- 

 riam) ; Nantucket, Mass., March, 1882 (Purdie) ; St. Albans, Vt., 

 October, 1890 (Howe) ; Grand Manan, N. B. (Boardman) ; near 

 Halifax, N. S., 1868, and Windsor, N. S., 1872 (Downs) ; in each of 

 the counties in Ohio along Lake Erie (Jones) ; Dunnville and Long 

 Point, Ontario (Mcllwraith) ; Keokuk, Iowa (Praeger) ; DesMoines, 

 Iowa (Keyes) ; Lake Koskonong, Wis.. August, 1886 (Skavlem) ; 

 Topeka, Kans., August 15, 1872 (Prentice) ; Fremont, Nebr., Sep- 

 tember 4, 1893 (Trostler) ; near Laramie, Wyo., early May, 1902 

 (Knight) ; Buffalo, Wyo., about April 11, 1904 (Felger) ; near Cal- 

 gary, Alberta, May 11, 1901 (Dippie) ; Burrard Inlet, B. C., May, 

 1879 (Fannin). 



