370 PURPLE HERON. 
means uncommon, though lately interfered with by drainage ; but, 
while principally a visitor on passage to Belgium, it breeds in con- 
siderable numbers in the marshy districts of the Loire, and in some 
parts of the south and east of France. In the Spanish Peninsula 
it nests freely, as it does also from Central Germany to the swampy 
parts of Southern Russia; migrating, as a rule, in the cold season 
from all the countries on the northern side of the Mediterranean. 
It is found in Madeira, the Canaries (rarely) and Cape Verde 
Islands, as well as in Northern Africa, while in Abyssinia it has been 
obtained at an elevation of 9,000 ft., and it inhabits suitable locali- 
ties down to Cape Colony and Madagascar. In Asia, to the east of 
about long. 50°, it is represented by 4. manidlensis, which has no 
streaks on the fore neck. 
Its breeding-places are usually difficult of access, being situated 
in flooded swamps, or in the midst of dense masses of reeds. Mr. 
Philip Crowley describes the nests at the Naarden Meer, near 
Amsterdam, as placed about three feet above the water, and made 
by bending down twelve or fifteen reeds to form a platform, on 
which some smaller pieces were arranged crosswise, and this agrees 
with my experience in Spain. The bluish-green eggs, usually 3 in 
number, are smaller than those of the Common Heron: measure- 
ments 2°2 by 1°5 in. In its habits the Purple Heron is shy, and 
crepuscular or even nocturnal in its time of feeding. From the 
thinness of the long snake-like neck, the birds are with difficulty 
distinguished when they are standing in a reed-margined lake, nearly 
up to the belly in water; for their bodies, in the shimmering sunlight, 
exactly resemble tussocks of rushes. The note is more guttural than 
that of its congener. The food consists of small mammals, reptiles, 
fishes (especially eels) and aquatic insects. 
The adult has the crown and long plumes glossy purplish-black ; 
cheeks and sides of the neck fawn-colour, streaked with bluish-black ; 
back and wing-coverts dark slate-grey ; elongated filamentous dorsal 
feathers chestnut ; tail grey; neck reddish-buff with a line of black 
down each side, terminating in a mass of chestnut, grey and black 
elongated feathers; under wing-coverts chestnut; breast rich 
maroon-red ; thighs rufous ; bill yellow; toes very long. Length 
about 33 in. (bill 6 in.); wing 14°25. The sexes are alike in 
plumage, but the male is the larger. In winter the long 
plumes are absent. In the young, until the second moult, the 
occipital crest, as well as the elongated feathers at the base of the 
neck and on the scapulars are absent ; the general colour above is 
rust-red, and the under parts are brownish-white. 
