600 NIGHT HERON. 



bladder of a curved form, 1^ inch in length, and 6 twelfths in its great- 

 est breadth. The intestine is 7 feet 7i inches in length ; its great- 

 est width, in the duodenum, is 3^ twelfths, at the distance of 3 feet, it 

 is 2| twelfths ; a foot and a half farther on it is scarcely 24 twelfths ; 

 and a half a foot from the rectum it is 2 twelfths ; it then slightly en- 

 larges. The rectum, including the cloaca, is 5 inches 9 twelfths in 

 length ; there is a single coecum, 5 twelfths long, and 2^ twelfths in 

 width, the average width of the rectum is ^ inch, and it expands into 

 a globular cloaca 2 inches 2 twelfths in diameter. The duodenum 

 curves at the distance of 5 inches, then passes to the right lobe of the 

 liver, bends backward, and is convoluted, forming 22 turns, terminat- 

 ing in the rectum above the stomach. 



The trachea is 21 inches in length, from 4^ twelfths to 3 twelfths 

 in breadth, toward the lower part enlarged to 4 twelfths, finally con- 

 tracted to 3 twelfths. The rings are 252, with 4 terminal dimidiate 

 rings. The right bronchus has 19, the left 20 half rings. The mus- 

 cles are in all respects as in Ardea occidentalis. 



NIGHT HERON. 



Ardea nycticorax, Linn. 



PLATE CCXXXVI. VoL III. p. 275. 



Dr T. M. Brewee of Boston has favoured me with an interesting 

 notice respecting a tame individual of this species : — " Although the ha- 

 bits of the Night Heron are thoroughly known to you, yet, as I have 

 had an opportunity of watching it in confinement and reduced to a state 

 of perfect domestication, if the following account afibrds you no addi- 

 tional information, it may perhaps serve to amuse you. In the summer 

 of 1835, I obtained three of the young of this bird, from the heronry 

 at Cambridge, which, so far from being an island, as mentioned by 

 NuTTALL in the passage quoted by you, is a swampy wood, not ten rods 

 from the public road, and united with the land on all sides excepting 

 one, on which is a small brook. I succeeded in rendering them quite 

 tame in a short time. In then* younger days they were quite voracious, 



