SPECIES 2. rfRDEA CJERULEA. 

 BLUE CRANE, OR HERON. 



[Plate LXIL Fig. 3.] 



Arct. Zool. No. 351. CATESBY, i, 76. Le Crabier bleu, BUFF. 

 vn, 398. SLOAN. Jam. n, 315. LATH. Syn. v. 3, p. 78, 7V0. 45, 

 p. 79, var. Jl. Jirdea cc&rulescens, TURT. Syst. p. 379. 

 PEALE'S Museum, JVo. 3782.* 



IN mentioning this species in his translation of the Sy sterna. 

 Naturae, Turton has introduced what he calls two varieties, 

 one from New Zealand, the other from Brazil ; both of which, 

 if we may judge by their size and colour, appear to be entirely 

 different and distinct species; the first being green with yellow 

 legs, the last nearly one half less than the present. By this 

 loose mode of discrimination, the precision of science being al- 

 together dispensed with, the whole tribe of Cranes, Herons, and 

 Bitterns may be styled mere varieties of the genus Jlrdea. 

 The same writer has still farther increased this confusion, by 

 designating as a different species his Bluish Heron (*ft. cseru- 

 lescens,) which agrees almost exactly with the present. Some 

 of these mistakes may probably have originated from the figure 

 of this bird given by Catesby, which appears to have been drawn 

 and coloured, not from nature, but from the glimmering recol- 

 lections of memory, and is extremely erroneous. These remarks 

 are due to truth, and necessary to the elucidation of the history 

 of his species, which seems to be but imperfectly known in 

 Europe. 



The Blue Heron is properly a native of the warmer climates 

 of the United Stales, migrating thence, at the approach of win- 

 ter, to the tropical regions; being found in Cayenne, Jamaica, 



* Heron lleudlre ih Cayenne, BUFF. PI. Enl. 349, adull. 



