138 ARDEAD^. 



GENUS LXVI. NYCTICORAX (NIGHT HERON). 



SPECIES 129 THE NIGHT HERON. 



Nycticorax gardenii. Selby. 

 Sihoreau a manteau noir. Temm. 



THE NIGHT HERON, or, to follow its generic name more cor- 

 rectly, the night raven, so denominated from its hoarse, croak- 

 ing cry, is a species of extreme rarity, and we admit it to a 

 place in our Fauna from a few specimens captured in the 

 country at different periods of the year. Two specimens in 

 adult and immature plumage have come under our own obser- 

 vation, one, a very beautiful male specimen, obtained in the 

 county of Louth, and preserved in the collection of Robert J. 

 Montgomery, Esq. ; the other, in immature plumage, pur- 

 chased by Dr. Ball for the Dublin University Museum. 



In habits, perhaps, more nocturnal than the other species 

 of the Ardeadae, it frequents marshes, or any locality where 

 sufficient herbage will admit of its skulking unobserved in 

 the daytime ; and in North America, where it is frequent, it 

 is known as the " qua bird." Breeding in flocks in the vici- 

 nity of swamps and cane-brakes, the flesh of the young birds 

 is esteemed equal in flavour to pigeons, so that they are eagerly 

 sought after by the settlers and their other enemies, the 

 raptorial birds. 



Habitat Northern Africa. 



GENUS LXYII. CICONIA (STORK). 



SPECIES 130 THE WHITE STORK. 



Ciconia alba. Brisson. 

 Cicogne blanc. Temm. 



WE might class the stork amongst the rarest and yet the 

 best known of the many rare visitants we have already seen 

 comprised in the great family of the Ardeadae. Only occur- 

 ring in two instances in Ireland, the first of which was ob- 

 tained in the county of Cork, in 1846, and which we had the 

 pleasure of seeing in the collection of Dr. Harvey of that city; 

 and the second obtained in the vicinity of a marsh near the 

 sea-shore in Wexford, during the autumn of the same year. 



Protected and preserved in continental towns, we see the 

 stork familiarly standing on the housetop and at dusk sail- 

 ing over the half marshy fields in the vicinity of the dykes. In- 



