163 



THE SNOWY HERON. 



-tARDEA CANDIDISSIMA, Gmel. 

 PLATE CCCLXXIV.— Male. 



This beautiful species is a constant resident in Florida and Louisiana, 

 where thousands are seen during winter, and where many remain during the 

 breeding season. It is perhaps of a still more delicate constitution than the 

 Blue Heron, Ardea ccerulea, as no individuals remain in the neighbourhood 

 of Charleston when the winter happens to be rather colder than usual. In 

 its migrations eastward it rarely proceeds farther than Long Island in the 

 State of New York; few are seen in Massachusetts, and none farther to the 

 east. My friend Professor MacCttlloch never heard of it in Nova Scotia, 

 and I cannot imagine on what authority Wilson stated that it inhabits the 

 sea-coast of North America to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. My friend 

 Nuttall also asserts, without mentioning on what evidence, that, by pur- 

 suing an inland course, it reaches its final destination in the wilds of Canada. 

 It has not been observed in any part of the western country; nay, it rarely 

 ascends the Mississippi as high as Memphis, or about two hundred miles 

 from the mouth of the Ohio, and cannot be said to be at all abundant much 

 farther up the great river than Natchez. In fact, the maritime districts 

 furnish its favourite places of resort, and it rarely proceeds farther inland 

 than fifty or sixty miles, even in the flat portions of the Carolinas, or in the 

 Middle States, where it prefers the islands along the Atlantic coast. 



While I was at Charleston, in March 1831, few had arrived from the 

 Floridas by the 18th of that month, but on the 25th thousands were seen in 

 the marshes and rice-fields, all in full plumage. They reach the shores of 

 New Jersey about the first week of May, when they may be seen on all 

 parts of the coast between that district and the Gulf of Mexico. On the 

 Mississippi, they seldom reach the low grounds about Natchez, where they 

 also breed, earlier than the period at which they appear in the Middle States. 



While migrating, they fly both by night and by day, in loose flocks of 

 from twenty to a hundred individuals, sometimes arranging themselves in a 

 broad front, then forming lines, and again proceeding in a straggling manner. 

 They keep perfectly silent, and move at a height seldom exceeding a hun- 

 dred yards. Their flight is light, undetermined as it were, yet well sustain- 



