400 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



rose in vast numbers, but without clamor, 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, some- 

 times 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." 



ARDEA, LiNN^us. 



Ardea, Linn^cs, Syst. Nat, I. (1735). (Type A. cinerea.) 



Bill very thick; culmen nearly straight; gonys ascending, its tip more convex 

 than that of culmen ; middle toe more than half the tarsus ; tibia bare for nearly 

 or quite one-half; claws short, much curved; outer toe longest; tarsus broadly 

 scutellate anteriorly; occiput with a few elongated occipital feathers; scapulars 

 elongate lanceolate, as long as the secondaries ; no dorsal plumes ; tail of twelve 

 broad stiffened feathers ; back of neck well feathered ; size very large ; colors plum- 

 beous, streaked beneath. 



ARDEA HEEODIAS. — Linnceus. 



The Great Blue Heron, or Crane. 



Ardea Eerodias, Linnaus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 237. Wils. Am. Cm., VIII. 

 (1814) 28. Nutt. Man., IL (1834) 42. Aud. Cm. Biog., III. (1835) 87; V. 599. 



Description. 



Lower third of tibia bare ; above bluish-ash ; edges of wing and the tibia rufous ; 

 neck cinnamon-brown ; head black, with a white frontal patch ; body beneath black, 

 broadly streaked on the belly with white ; crissum white ; middle line of throat 

 white, streaked with black and rufous. 



Adult. — Bill yellow, dusky at the base and greenish above ; the forehead and 

 central part of the crown are white, encircled laterally and behind by black, of 

 which color is the occipital crest and its two elongated feathers ; the neck is of a 

 light smoky cinnamon-brown, with perhaps a tinge of purple; the chin and throat 

 whitish ; the feathers along the central line of the throat to the breast white, streaked 

 with black, and also with reddish-brown, except on the elongated feathers of the 



