GREAT WHITE HERON. 521 



and Italy. Has been taken in Corsica and Sardinia ; but 

 is more common among the islands of the Grecian Archi- 

 pelago, in Turkey, and in Hungary. Mr. Strickland says 

 it frequents the salt marshes west of Smyrna. Messrs. 

 Dickson and Ross saw a few at Erzeroom, about the river 

 from the beginning of May till October, sometimes in flocks, 

 and sometimes solitary ; and the Russian Naturalists found 

 this bird in the spring on the borders of the salt lakes at 

 Bakou. Large White Herons, brought from India by 

 Colonel Sykes and Major Franklin, were considered to be 

 of the same species as the European bird, although a little 

 smaller in size. It feeds on small fish, reptiles, mollusca, 

 and aquatic insects, and breeds on the ground among reeds 

 and herbage, producing four or five large bluish green 

 eggs. 



Adult birds have the beak yellow at the base, black 

 towards the point ; the lore and bare space round the eye, 

 pale green ; irides yellow ; the whole plumage white ; the 

 feathers of the back of the head, and bottom of the neck in 

 front, elongated ; the interscapulars and dorsal feathers very 

 much elongated and filamentous; legs, toes, and claws, 

 almost black. 



Adult males and females are alike in plumage. 



The whole length from the point of the beak to the end 

 of the tail exceeds three feet by a few inches. From the 

 eye to the end of the beak, four inches seven-eighths ; bare 

 part of the tibia three inches and a half; length of the 

 tarsus six inches and a half; middle toe and claw four 

 inches and one quarter. 



Young birds do not acquire the elongated feathers during 

 their first or second year. 





