72 HERON. 



34— MINUTE HERON. 



Ardea exilis, Ind. Orn. ii. 6S3. Gm. Lin. i. 645. 

 Le Heron varie, Voy. d'Azara, iv. No. 361 ? 

 Minute Bittern, Gen. Syn. v. 66. 



SIZE of a Thrush in the body ; length eleven inches and a half. 

 Bill two inches long, greenish, with a pale point; irides straw- 

 colour ; crown of the head dark rufous chestnut ; sides of the neck 

 rufous ; the feathers pretty long, and meeting behind, where it is 

 nearly bare; chin, and fore part of the neck white, with a series of 

 pale, ferruginous feathers on each side of the white, with a blackish 

 line down the shaft of each ; on the lower part of the neck the 

 feathers are long, and loose, some of them nearly white, and hang 

 over the breast, which is brownish black : this colour passing up- 

 wards on each side to the back, like a crescent ; but the feathers have 

 whitish margins; those of the back rufous chestnut, margined with 

 pale yellow ; the first and third order of the wing coverts like the 

 back, but plain ; the middle ones ferruginous, with a dusky line 

 down the middle of the shaft; quills black ; some of the inner prime 

 ones chestnut at the tips; secondaries the same, some few of them 

 wholly chestnut; belly, thighs, and vent, white; tail black; legs 

 green, bare for three quarters of an inch above the joint. 



Inhabits Jamaica, from whence I received a single specimen : it 

 is said to be a rare bird. 



Azara compares his to the Little Bittern, as to size and shape. 

 The bill orange, with a dusky base ; irides yellow ; on the crown a 

 longitudinal black streak ; parts above more or less rufous, dashed 

 down the shafts with black ; neck behind, scapulars, back, and tail 

 feathers, darker in the middle, edged with light rufous; wing- 

 coverts the same, but the outer are the colour of Spanish snuff; neck 

 before marked with obscure streaks, on a pale rufous ground ; breast 



