

GREAT WHITE HERON. 33 



York. It enters the territories of the United States 

 late in February; this I conjecture from having first 

 met with it in the southern parts of Georgia about that 

 time. The high inland parts of the country it rarely 

 or never visits ; its favourite haunts are vast inundated 

 swamps, rice fields, the low marshy shores of rivers, 

 and such like places ; where, from its size and colour 

 it is very conspicuous, even at a great distance. , 



' The appearance of this bird, during the first season, 

 when it is entirely destitute of the long flowing plumes 

 of the back, is so different from the same bird in its 

 perfect plumage, which it obtains in the third year, 

 that naturalists arid others very generally consider them 

 as two distinct species. The opportunities which I 

 have fortunately had of observing them with the train 

 in various stages of its progress, from its first appearance 

 to its full growth, satisfies me that the great white 

 heron with, and that without, the long plumes, are one 

 and the same species, in different periods of age. In 

 the museum of my friend, Mr Peale, there is a specimen 

 of this bird, in which the train is wanting ; but on a 

 closer examination, its rudiments are plainly to be 

 perceived, extending several inches beyond the common 

 plumage. 



The great white heron breeds in several of the 

 extensive cedar swamps in the lower parts of New 

 Jersey. Their nests are built on the trees, in societies ; 

 the structure and materials exactly similar to those of 

 the snowy heron, but larger. The eggs are usually 

 four, of a pale blue colour. In the months of July and 

 August the young make their first appearance in the 

 meadows and marshes, in parties of twenty or thirty 

 together. The large ditches with which the extensive 

 meadows below Philadelphia are intersected, are regu- 

 larly, about that season, visited by flocks of those 

 birds ; these are frequently shot, but the old ones are 

 too sagacious to be easily approached. Their food 

 consists of frogs, lizards, small fish, insects, seeds of the 

 splatterdock, (a species of nymphze,) and small water 

 snakes. They will also devour mice and moles, the 



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