524 NIGHT HERON. OR QUA-BIRD. 
crested head, very dark glossy green. The female, as I have partic- 
ularly observed, in numerous instances, differs in nothing, as to color, 
from the male; neither of them receive the long feathers on the back 
during the first season. 
There is one circumstance attending this bird, which, I recollect, at 
first surprised me. On shooting and wounding one, I carried it some 
distance by the legs, which were at first yellow; but on reaching 
home, I perceived, to my surprise, that they were red. On letting the 
bird remain some time undisturbed, they again became yellow, and J 
then discovered that the action of the hand had brought a flow of 
blood into them, and produced the change of color. I have remarked 
the same in those of the Night Heron. 
NIGHT HERON, OR QUA-BIRD. —ARDEA NYCTICORAX.— 
Fiaes. 245, 246. 
Arct. Zool. No. 356. — Le Bichoreau, Buff. vii. 435, 439, rol. 22. Pl. enl. 758, 759, 
899. — Lath. Syn. iii. p. 52, No. 13; p. 53, young, called there the female. — 
Peale’s Museum, No. 3728 ; young, No. 3729. 
NYCTICORAX GARDENIL* 
Ardea nycticorax, Z’emm. Mun. ii. p. 577.—Gardenian Heron, Mont. Orn. Dict. i. 
— Bonap. Synop. p. 306.— Wag. Syst. Av. Ardea, No. 31. 
Tuts species, though common to both continents, and known in 
Europe for many centuries, has been so erroneously described by all 
the European naturalists whose works 1 have examined, as to require 
more than common notice in this place. For this purpose, an accurate 
figure of the male is given, and also another of what ‘has, till now, been 
universally considered the female, with a detail of so much of their 
history as 1 am personally acquainted with. 
* Nycticorax, or Night Raven, has been adopted to designate this from among 
the ardeade, from the circumstance of their feeding by night, and remaining in a 
state of comparative rest and inactivity during the day. New Holland and Africa 
each possess a species. Europe and North America have one in common to both 
countries; in the former abundantly distributed, while in the latter it is of rare oc- 
currence, even towards the south ; and, in the northern parts of Great Britain, only 
a few instances have occurred of its capture. 
In form, they are intermediate between the Bitterns and true Herons ; the bill is 
short, and stronger in proportion than in either; the feathers on the sides of the 
neck are lengthened, and cover the hinder part, which is bare to a certain extent ; 
and, in all the species, the hind head is adorned with (generally three) narrow feath- 
ers, in the form of a crest. They feed by twilight, or in clear nights, and take their 
prey by watching, in the manner of the Herons. They are gregarious; tuild on 
trees ; and, during the season of incubation, are noisy and restless. 
The colors, in the adults of the true species, are ash-gray, or pale fawn; the 
crown and hind head, and the back, or that part called by the French manteau, in 
the ash-gray species, dark, glossy green; in the fawn colored. deep chestnut. The 
young are always of a duskier Unge, and have the centre and tips of each feather 
white, giving the plumage a spotted appearance, — 0... 
