266 



ARDEIDiE, HERONS. 



tlie plumage is nearly unchangeable, are very few. Indeed, probably no birds show 

 greater changes of plumage, with age and season, than nearly all the herons. 

 Their beautiful plumes are only worn during the breeding season ; the young 

 invariably lack them, and there are still more remarkable changes of plumage 

 in many cases. Thus, the young may be pure white while the adults are dark 

 colored, as in the small blue heron; and sometimes even, as in the remarkable 

 case of our reddish egret, most individuals change from white to a dark 

 plumage after two years, while others appear to remain white their whole lives, 



Fig. 176. Great Bine Heron. 



and others again are dark from the nest. Many species are pure white at all 

 times, and to these the name of " egret" more particularly belongs ; but I should 

 correct a prevalent impression that an egret is anything particularly diflerent 

 from other herons. The name, a corruption of the French word "aigrette," simply 

 refers to the plumes that ornament most of the herons, white or otherwise, and 

 has no classificatory meaning ; its application, in any given instance, is purely 

 conventional. The colors of the bill, lores and feet are extremely variable, not 

 only with age or season, bat as individual peculiarities ; sometimes the two legs of 

 the same specimen arc not colored exactly alike. The 9 is commonly smaller than 

 the (J . The normal individual variability in stature and relative length of parts 



