36 ARDEA CANDIDISSJMA. 



wholly of sticks. Each had in it three eggs, of a pale 

 greenish blue colour, and measuring uii inch and three 

 quarters in length, by an inch and a quarter in thick- 

 ness. Forty or fifty of these eggs were cooked, and 

 found to he 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 rose 

 in vast numbers, but without clamour, alighting on the 

 tops of the trees around, and watching the result in 

 silent anxiety. Among them were numbers of the 

 night heron, and two or three purple-headed herons. 

 Great quantities of egg shells lay scattered under the 

 trees, occasioned by the depredations of the crows, who 

 were continually hovering about the place. On one of 

 the nests I found the dead body of the bird itself, half 

 devoured by the hawks, crows, or gulls. She had 

 probably perished in defence of her eggs. 



The snowy heron is seen at all times during summer 

 among the salt marshes, watching and searching for 

 food, or passing, sometimes in flocks, from one part of 

 the bay to the other. They often make excursions up 

 the rivers and inlets, but return regularly in the evening 

 to the red cedars on the beach to roost. I found these 

 birds on the Mississippi, early in June, as far up as 

 Fort Adams, roaming about among the creeks and 

 inundated woods. 



The length of this species is two feet one inch; 

 extent, three feet two inches ; the bill is four inches 

 and a quarter long, and grooved ; the space from the 

 nostril to the eye, orange yellow, the rest of the bill 

 black; irides, vivid orange; the whole plumage is of 

 a snowy whiteness; the head is largely crested with 

 loose iin webbed feathers, nearly four inches in length ; 

 another tuft of the same covers the breast ; hut tliem<-: 

 distinguished ornament of this bird is a bunch of hm; 1 ; 

 silky plumes, proceeding from the shoulders, corering 

 the whole back, and extending beyond the tail, the 

 shafts of these are six or seven inches lonjr, extremely 

 elastic, tapering to the extremities, and thinly set with 

 long, slender, bending threads or fibres, easily agitated 



