44 ARDEA VIOLACEA. 



shot a few years ago on the borders of Schuylkill below 

 Philadelphia. 



The food of this species consists of small fish, crabs, 

 and lizards, 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 long flowing 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 upper 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 natura- 

 lists the Cayenne night heron (Ardea Cayanensis,) is 

 nothing more than the present, with which, according- 

 to their descriptions, it seems to agree almost exactly. 



