416 REDDISH EGRET. 



ous sizes, of which it consumes a great number, and of which it finds no 

 difficulty in procuring a sufficiency, as all the waters of those portions of 

 the Floridas that are inhabited by it are very profusely stocked. I was 

 told that, although still plentiful in the Floridas, this species was much 

 more so when the keys were first settled. I was present when a person 

 killed twenty-eight in succession in about an hour, the poor birds hover- 

 ing above their island in dismay, and unaware of the destructive power 

 of their enemy. 



The remarkable circumstance of this bird's changing from white to 

 purple will no doubt have some tendency to disconcert the systematists, 

 who, it seems, pronounce all the birds which they name Egrets to be al- 

 ways white ; but how much more disconcerted must they be when they 

 see that among the Herons peculiarly so named, which they say are al- 

 ways coloured, the largest known to exist in the United States is pure 

 white. It is not at present my intention to say what an Egret is, or what 

 a Heron is ; but it can no longer be denied that the presence or absence 

 of a loose crest, floating plume, and a white colour, ai'e insufficient for 

 establishing essential characters separating Egrets from Herons, which in 

 fact display the most intimate connection, the one group running into the 

 other in an almost imperceptible gradation. Hoping that an account of 

 the extent of the migrations of the twelve species of Heron that occur in 

 the United States, and whose habits I have studied for many years under 

 the most favourable circumstances, may prove acceptable, I now lay one 

 before you, arranging the species according to size, without regard to the 

 rank they hold in systematic works. 



1. The Great White Heron. Ardea occ'identalis. A constant resi- 

 dent on the southern keys of Florida ; entirely maritime ; never goes 

 farther eastward than Cape Florida, though in winter the younger birds 

 migrate southward, and perhaps pass beyond the extremities of the Gulf 

 of Mexico. 



2. The Great Blue Heron. Ardea Herodias. A constant resident 

 in the Floridas ; migrates throughout the Union, and as far along the 

 Atlantic coast as the southernmost islands of the Gulf of St Lawrence in 

 summer ; breeds in all the districts, and at the approach of winter returns 

 to the Southern States. 



3. The AVhite Heron. Ardea alba. Resident in the Floridas ; mi- 

 grates to the eastward sometimes as far as Massachusetts, and up the 

 Mississippi as far as the city of Natchez ; never seen far inland. 



