52 HERON. 



top of the head brown, glossed with violet and green ; throat and 

 neck brown, dotted with white, but the lower part of the neck is 

 glossed with violet, and dotted with grey brown ; back, wing coverts, 

 and scapulars, violet brown, glossed with green; rump pale brown; 

 from the breast to the vent white; quills brown, glossed with green 

 and violet; those nearest the body narrow, and as long as the greater 

 when the wing is closed ; tail rounded in shape ; legs dull red ; the 

 claws broad and flat. 



Inhabits many parts of Europe, but is less common than the 

 White, and like that, migrates south in autumn, but is much less 

 familiar, for it retires to the thick forests and marshes, at a distance 

 from habitations, to breed, being a solitary species. It is pretty 

 common in Poland, Lithuania, Prussia, aud Switzerland, migrating 

 much farther north than the White Sort ; in the more temperate parts 

 of Russia and Siberia not uncommon, and plentiful all along the 

 Don ; perches on trees, and makes the nest on them in the depths of 

 forests. From its being less common, fewer authors have mentioned 

 it : it is said, however, to frequent the Caspian Sea, and to be met 

 with at Aleppo; like the White Species, it feeds on reptiles and fish, 

 and the flesh is said to be no better tasted ; the egg, according to 

 Klein, is pale, and smaller than that of the White Stork. 



It has only been met with in England once, that I know of, and 

 in the Collection of Colonel Montagu, to whom a specimen was 

 brought, having only been wounded in the wing. The Colonel 

 informed me, that it lived in perfect amity among his aquatic birds, 

 and so tame, as to follow him for food, which it would take out of 

 his hands;* it lived on reptiles, and offal of all kinds, but eels were 

 the food it seemed most to delight in. 



* See Lin. Trans. Vol. xii. p. 19. This bird had a bill seven inches long, the upper 

 mandible rather longer than the under; colour dusky red, with an orange tip ; and the irides 

 light hazel : lore and orbits bare, and of a dull red ; the general description much as above 

 mentioned : in respect to the changes of plumage, we refer the reader to the memoir itself. 



