406 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



penetrable swamps, these birds have several heronries, which 

 they have inhabited for years. When their haunts are 

 approached, the birds rise with a guttural note, like the 

 syllable qudk, and alight in some tall tree, from which they 

 silently watch the intruder. 



The eggs are usually four in number. Their form is 

 generally ovoidal, and their color a rich drab, with some- 

 times an olive tinge. I know of no species that exhibits so 

 little variation in the size of its eggs as this ; for in a large 

 number of specimens in my collection from half a dozen 

 different States, east and west, the only variety of dimen- 

 sions is from 1.92 by 1.50 inch to 1.88 by 1.48 inch. 



In the mating season, and during the first part of the 

 period of incubation, the male has a peculiar love-note, that 

 almost exactly resembles the stroke of a mallet on a stake ; 

 something like the syllables ' chunk-a-lunk-chunk, quank- 

 chunk-a-lunk-chunk. I have often, when in the forests of 

 Northern Maine, been deceived by this note into believing 

 that some woodman or settler was in my neighborhood, 

 and discovered my mistake only after toiling through swamp 

 and morass for perhaps half a mile. But one brood is 

 reared in the season by this bird in New England ; and, by 

 the first week in August, the young are able to shift for 

 themselves. 



BUTORIDES, BLYTH. 



Butorides, BLYTH (1849), Horsf. (Type Ardea Javanica.) 



Bill acute, rather longer than* the head, gently curved from the base above; 

 gonys slightly ascending; legs very short; tarsi scarcely longer than the middle 

 toe; broadly scutellate anteriorly; lateral toes nearly equal; head with elongated 

 feathers above and behind; these are well defined, lanceolate, as are the inter- 

 scapulars and scapulars; the latter not exceeding the tertials; neck short; bare 

 behind inferiorly; tibia feathered nearly throughout; tail of twelve feathers. 



BUTORIDES VIRESCENS. Bonaparte. 

 The Green Heron; Fly-up-the-Creek. 



Ardea virescens, Linnaeus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 238. Wils. Am. Orn., VII. 

 J1813) 97. Aud. Orn. Biog., IV. (1838) 274. 



Ardea (botaurus) virescens. Nutt, II. (1834) 63. 

 Butorides virescens, Bonaparte. Consp. Av., II. (1855) 128. 



