88 YELLOW-CROWNED HERON. 



builds in societies, making its nest with sticks among the 

 branches of low trees, and lays four pale blue eggs. The species 

 is not numerous in Carolina, which, with its solitary mode of 

 life, makes this bird but little known there. It abounds on the 

 Bahama islands, where it also breeds, and great numbers of the 

 young, as we are told, are yearly taken for the table, being ac- 

 counted in that quarter excellent eating. This bird also extends 

 its migrations into Virginia, and even farther north; one of them 

 having been shot a few years ago on the borders of Schuylkill 

 below Philadelphia. 



The food of this species consists of small fish, crabs and liz- 

 ards, particularly the former; it also appears to have a strong 

 attachment to the neighbourhood of the ocean. 



The Yellow-crowned Heron is twenty-two inches in length, 

 from the point of the bill to the end of the tail; the longHowing 

 plumes of the back extend four inches farther; breadth from tip 

 to tip of the expanded wings thirty-four inches; bill black, stout, 

 and about four inches in length, the upper mandible grooved 

 exactly like that of the common Night Heron; lores pale green; 

 irides fiery red; head and part of the neck black, marked on 

 each cheek with an oblong spot of white; crested crown and up- 

 per part of the head white, ending in two long narrow tapering 

 plumes of pure white, more than seven inches long; under these 

 are a few others of a blackish colour; rest of the neck and whole 

 lower parts fine ash, somewhat whitish on that part of the neck 

 where it joins the black; upper parts a dark ash, each feather 

 streaked broadly down the centre with black, and bordered 

 with white; wing quills deep slate, edged finely with white; 

 tail even at the end, and of the same ash colour; wing coverts 

 deep slate, broadly edged with pale cream; from each shoulder 

 proceed a number of long loosely webbed tapering feathers, of 

 an ash colour, streaked broadly down the middle with black, 

 and extending four inches or more beyond the tips of the wings; 

 legs and feet yellow; middle claw pectinated. Male and female, 

 as in the common Night Heron, alike in plumage. 



I strongly suspect that the species called by naturalists the 



