THE SNOWY HERON. 



399 



DESCRIPTION. 



Occiput much crested; dorsal plumes reaching to the end of the tail ; colors pure- 

 white; bill black; the base j^ellow; legs black; iris, hazel in young, yellow in 

 adult. 



Length, twenty-four inches; wing, ten and twenty on e-hundredths inches; tar- 

 sus, three and eighty one-hundredths inches; bill, above, three and fifteen one-hun- 

 dredths inches. 



THIS beautiful bird is a very rare summer visitor in 

 the southern New-England States. I have never had 

 an opportunity for observing its habits, and will give the 

 description by Wilson : 



" The Snowy Heron seems particularly fond of the salt marshes 

 during summer, seldom penetrating far inland. Its white plumage 

 renders it a very conspicuous object, either while on wing, or while 

 wading the meadows or marshes. 

 Its food consists of those small 

 crabs usually called fiddlers, mud- 

 worms, snails, frogs, and lizards. 

 It also feeds on the seeds of some 

 species of nymphse, and of several 

 other aquatic plants. 



On the 19th of May, I visited 

 an extensive breeding-place of the 

 Snowy Heron, among the red ce- 

 dars of Summer's Beach, on the 

 coast of Cape May. The situation 

 was very sequestered, bounded on 

 the land side by a fresh-water 

 marsh or pond, and sheltered from 

 the Atlantic by ranges of sand-hills. The cedars, though not high, 

 were so closely crowded together as to render it difficult to pene- 

 trate through among them. Some trees contained three, others 

 four nests, built wholly of sticks. Each had in it three eggs of a 

 pale greenish-blue color, and measuring an inch and three-quarters 

 in length by an inch and a quarter in thickness. Forty or fifty of 

 these eggs were cooked, and found to be well tasted : the white 

 was of a bluish tint, and almost transparent, though boiled for a 

 considerable time ; the yolk very small in quantity. The birds 



