WATER BIRDS. 143 
county, but Dr. Gibbs did not personally verify this statement, and I have 
been unable to get any confirmation of it. The statement appears not 
to have been published by Dr. Atkins, but occurred in a letter or manuscript 
which is not now to be found. In Covert’s manuscript list of 1894-95 we 
find the statement ‘One specimen obtained at Geddes [near Ann Arbor], 
in May, 1876, by the late Dr. Joshua Jones of Chicago, IIL, formerly of 
Ann Arbor. That specimen is still (1895) in what remains of his collection 
at Ann Arbor.”” We have been unable to verify this record. 
Four specimens were taken at or near Aylmer, Ont., an inland town 
nine miles north of Lake Erie, in the summer of 1901 (Auk, XIX, 94), 
and there are several records for the species in Ohio (Auk, XVIII, 392) 
and Wisconsin (Kumlien and Hollister, p. 36). It was formerly abundant 
along the lower Wabash Valley in Indiana, where it remained all summer 
and nested (Butler, Birds of Indiana, 1897, p. 664). 
In Florida and the Gulf States, where it is an abundant species, it is said 
to feed mostly by day, to be always found in flocks, and to nest in com- 
munities, placing the nest of sticks on bushes or low trees in or very near 
the water. The eggs are three or four, blue, unspotted, and average 1.73 
by 1.28 inches. 
The immature birds, white or largely white, are often mistaken for White 
Egrets, and from the fact that these are commonly found associated with 
the blue adult birds, although flocks of either color are also found by 
themselves, the adult birds are often called Blue Egrets. But these birds 
never develop the slender and beautiful ‘‘aigrette” plumes, and con- 
sequently are not in demand by the plume hunter. As a result the species 
is still fairly abundant over large areas in the south where the Eerets have 
been almost entirely exterminated. 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
“Adult with scapular and jugular plumes elongated, narrowly lanceolate, compact- 
webbed; occipital plumes slender, only a few of them much elongated. Color of adult 
usually uniform dark slate blue, with maroon-colored head and neck, but not unfrequently 
‘pied’ with white, or even almost wholly white, with bluish tips to longer quills. Young 
usually pure white, with longer quills (primaries) tipped with slate-blue. 
“Length 20 to 29.50 inches; wing 9 to 10.60; culmen 2.70 to 3.30; tarsus 3.15 to 4.” 
(Ridgway) 
75. Green Heron. Butorides virescens virescens Linn. (201) 
Synonyms: Green Bittern, Little Green Heron, Poke, Fly-up-the-creek.—Ardea 
virescens, Linn., 1758, Wils., Nutt., Aud., and others.—Butorides virescens, Bonap., 
1855, Baird, Ridgw., Coues and most recent authors. 
Figures 35, 36, 37, 38. 
The measurements and general green color of the back and wings serve 
to separate this heron from any other. It is smaller than any other member 
of the family except the Least Bittern and Cory’s Bittern. 
Distribution.—Temperate North America, from Ontario and Oregon 
southward to Columbia, Venezuela, and the West Indies. Bermuda. 
This perhaps is the best known of the smaller herons in Southern Mich- 
igan, but it does not seem to extend far northward. It is abundant in 
