RIDGWAY ON AMERICAN HERODIONES. 231 



bon, iu his edition of 1843, tells us that he caught some of the young 

 white birds and took them to Charleston ; and although one of these 

 birds lived to be three years old, it obstinately refused to put on, what 

 Audubon tells us is, its mature plumage, as it ought to have done if it 

 was ever going to do it. It is singular that this fact never gave to Mr. 

 Audubon a revelation of the actual and only explanation of the facts he 

 witnessed and narrates — that the two birds live together as members of 

 one family. 



"In 1848 Dr. William Gambel of Philadelphia, a young ornithologist of 

 exceeding promise — the beauty of whose private worth was not surpassed 

 by the bright promises of a scientific future, alas too soon shut out by 

 his early death — visited Florida, and apparently quite upset Mr. Audu- 

 bon's conclusions. At any rate he found some of the brown-necked 

 herons having brown-necked young ones, and some of the White Egrets 

 having white young ones. And very naturally he concluded that Au- 

 dubon had been imposed upon, or had imposed upon others, and that 

 the two forms were two totally distinct species of heron. The scientific 

 world accepted his conclusions, and from that time forth we find Peale's 

 Egret Heron and the Kufous Egret Heron taking their places in our 

 systems as two totally distinct and separate species. But alas for the 

 uncertainty of science. Dr. Gambel was, after all, as hasty in his con- 

 clusions as Mr. Audubon, and quite as far from the true solution of this 

 problem ; and the regret with which I have always thought of his early 

 death, is deepened by the wish that my friend could have lived to read 

 and to see the solution of this vexed question. 



" Mr. N. B. Moore, a gentleman of culture and observation, whose 

 health has required his residence in Florida for several years past, and 

 whose knowledge of Ornithology has made him a competent witness, 

 has had his attention called to this question, and his' explanation reaches 

 to the root of the whole problem. His letters addressed to my friend, 

 Prof. Baird, have been placed iu my hands, and from them I gather 

 these conclusions: First, that all Mr. Audubon's facts may have been 

 correctly stated, and yet his inferences not correctly drawn; second, 

 that Dr. Gambel's facts may, also, all have been truly given, and his 

 conclusions equally incorrect. The white birds are not exclusively the 

 young of the brown and blue birds; and, although, in some instances, 

 the white bird may have white young and the blue bird may have blue 

 children, they are not, nevertheless, two species, but one. Mr. Moore 

 shows that, iu some instances, he has known a pair of the blue heron to 

 have children one white and the other blue. He has known the blue 

 to mate with the white and the white with the blue, and some to have 

 children of opposite colors from their own. In fact, that they are one 

 and the same species whether the color be blue or white. The color 

 has no specific significance. It denotes neither species, sex nor age. 

 Parents do not, in all cases, bequeath their own color to their children. 

 Yet there are no mixtures. They are either entirely the one or the other. 



