56 



ALTRICIAL GRALLATORES — HERODIONES. 



Hab. The wlinle of temperate and tropical America, from British America to Chili and the 

 Falkland Islands. Part of the West Indies; Bernuidas. 



Sp. Char. Adult : Pileuni, scapulars, and interscapulars, glossy blackish bottle-green ; fore- 

 head, postucular, malar, and gular regions, and medial lower parts, white ; lateral lower parts and 

 neck, except in front, pale ash-gra}', with a slight lilaceous tinge ; wings, rump, upper tail-coverts 

 and tail, deeper ash-gray. Occipital plumes pure white. Bill black ; lores and orbits yellowish 

 green ; iris bright red ; legs and feet yellow ; claws brown. [AuDUBON.] Young, second year : 



Similar to the adult, but scapulars and interscapulars cinereous, like the wings, and the white of 

 the forehead obscured by the blackish of the crown ; the color.s generally more sombre, with neck 

 and lower jjarts more decidedly ashy. Young, first year : Above, grayish brown, with more or less 

 of a cinnamon cast, especially on the remiges, each feather marked with a medial tear-shaped, or 

 wedge-shaped stripe of white, the remiges with .small white terminal spots ; rectrices plain ash- 

 gray. Sides of the head and neck, and entire lowxn- parts, striped longitudinally with grayish 

 brown and dull white ; chin and throat plain white medially. Bill light apjile-green, the upper 

 half of the maxilla Ijlackish, the mandible with a tinge of the same near the end ; lores light 

 ap|)le-green ; eyeliils similar, but Inighter — more yellowish, their inner edge Uaek ; iris dark 

 chrome-yellow or dull orange ; legs and feet light yellowish apple-green ; claws graj'ish horn- 

 color.i 



Length about 24,0(:)-26.U0 ; expanse, 44.00. Weight,! lb. 14 oz. (Auddbon). Wing, 11.00- 

 12-80; tail, 4.20-5.30; culmen, 2.80-3.10; depth of bill, .70-85; tar.sus, 3.10-3.40; middle 

 toe, 2.65-3.10 ; bare portion of tibia, .90-1 .40.^ 



The series of specimens at hand is luifortunately too small to justify an opinion as to whether 

 tlie American Night Herons are really separable as a geographical race from those of the Old 

 World, or wdiether there are two races in America. Authors recognize a N. ohscurus from the 

 southern part of South America, but ten specimens from that region compared with thirteen from 

 Northern America certainly do not indicate any constant difference, notwithstanding a certain 

 proportion (in this case four of the eight specimens before us, or one half) are more or less darker, 

 though only a small proportion of them are very much darker ; wdiile of the other four, two ai-e as 

 light-colored as the very palest of northern ones, tiie others being about like tlie average. There 

 being no other differences beyond the slightly larger averar/c size of the southern birds (especially 

 noticeable in those from the high districts of Peru and Chili), we are hardly inclined, for the 

 present, at least, to recognize a var. obscunis, hut, on the other hand, to look upon the latter as the 

 expression of a tendency to partial melanism affecting this species in certain localities of the regions 

 indicated, this tendency, moreover, perhaps affecting only some individuals in such localities. 



1 From a specimen killed August 13, 1879, near Wnslungtou, V>. C. 

 ^ Extremes of thirteen exiimples from North and Middle America. 



