( 317 ) 

 THE SNOWY HERON. 



ArDEA CANDIDISSIMA, GmEL. 

 PLATi: CCXLII. Male. 



This beautiful species is a constant resident in Florida and Louisiana^ 

 ■where thousands are seen during winter, and where many remain during 

 the breeding season. It is perhaps of a still more delicate constitution 

 than the Blue Heron, Ardea ccerulea, as no individuals remain in the 

 neighbourhood of Charleston when the winter happens to be rather colder 

 than usual. In its migrations eastward it rarely proceeds farther than 

 Long Island in the State of New York ; few are seen in Massachusetts, 

 and none farther to the east. My friend Professor MacCulloch never 

 heard of it in Nova Scotia, and I cannot imagine on what authority 

 Wilson stated that it inhabits the sea-coast of North America to the 

 Gulf of St Lawrence. My friend Nottall also asserts, without men- 

 tioning on what evidence, that, by pursuing an inland course, it reaches 

 its final destination in the wilds of Canada. It has not been observed in 

 any part of the western country ; nay, it rarely ascends the Mississippi 

 as high as Memphis, or about two hundred miles from the mouth of the 

 Ohio, and cannot be said to be at all abundant much farther up the great 

 river than Natchez. In fact, the maritime districts furnish its favourite 

 places of resort, and it rarely proceeds farther inland than fifty or sixty 

 miles, even in the flat portions of the Carolinas, but even in the Middle 

 States, where it prefei-s the islands along the Atlantic coast. 



While I was at Charleston, in March 1831 , few had arrived from the 

 Floridas by the 18th of that month, but on the 25th thousands were seen 

 in the marshes and rice fields, all in full plumage. They reach the shores 

 of New Jersey about the first week of May, when they may be seen on 

 all parts of the coast between that district and the Gulf of Mexico. On 

 the Mississippi, they seldom reach the low grounds about Natchez, where 

 they also breed, earlier than the period at which they appear in the Mid- 

 dle States. 



While migrating, they fly both by night and by day, in loose flocks 

 of from twenty to a hundred individuals, sometimes arranging themselves 

 in a broad front, then forming lines, and again proceeding in a strao-o-ling 



