58 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES [Proc. 4th Ser. 



The specimens are in process of moult from the juvenal 

 plumage to the post juvenal plumage, being in about the same 

 stage as a young female (No. 13475 C. A. S.) taken in Mer- 

 ced County, California, on September 3, 1908. The upper 

 parts, particularly the wing-coverts, still contain a good many 

 of the feathers edged with light sandy-buff that characterize 

 the young. 



Ardea herodias: Great Blue Heron 



Albemarle, Charles, Chatham, Duncan, Hood, Indefati- 

 gable, James, Narborough, and Seymour islands. 



Although usually solitary. Great Blue Herons are not un- 

 common on the central and southern islands. They seemed 

 to be confined to the vicinity of tide-water, and did not fre- 

 quent the salt lagoons, which were the haunts of the Flamin- 

 goes and Egrets. 



They lacked the wariness of northern birds, and at times 

 would allow approach to within a few yards. On one occasion 

 an individual followed me about on wing in a mangrove 

 swamp, apparently from curiosity. Each time I moved away a 

 short distance, it would leave the tree on which it had settled, 

 and fly to another near by, and crane its neck and peer down 

 at me. At another time one was attracted to a dead bird of 

 the same species, although a party from the schooner was 

 standing in plain view within twenty-five yards. 



A bird with enlarged sexual organs was shot on the north- 

 western part of Indefatigable Island on July 23. Three 

 months later Mr. Hunter obtained on southeastern In- 

 defatigable a nearly naked young one, with pin-feathers just 

 appearing, while Messrs. Rothschild and Hartert report a 

 clutch of three fresh eggs on that island on September 2} 

 Messrs. Snodgrass and Heller found a set of three eggs on 

 Narborough Island in January.- As with the Frazar's Oyster- 

 catcher, the breeding-season appears to be quite extended, or 

 else it is later on Narborough than on the islands to the 

 eastward of Albemarle. 



There seem to be no color characters distinguishing Gala- 

 pagos specimens of the Great Blue Heron from middle-Cali- 



■■•Nov. Zool., V. 6, pp. 93, 115, 180. 

 =Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci., v. 5, p. 254. 



