BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 23 



times the seeds of the pond lilies and other aquatic plants." In April, 

 1885, I visited an island in a small lake in Orange county, Florida, 

 where this species, also the Louisiana, Little Blue and Green Herons, 

 were breeding on low bushes. I shot seven Snowy Herons, and found 

 in the viscera of all only the remains of fish. 



201. Ardea virescens. LINN. 



Green Heron. 



DESCRIPTION. 



"The Green Bittern is eighteen inches long, and twenty-five inches in extent; bill 

 black, lighter below, and yellow at the base ; chin, and narrow streak down the 

 throat, yellowish-white ; neck dark vinaceous-red ; back covered with very long, 

 tapering, pointed feathers, of a hoary green, shafted with white, on a dark-green 

 ground ; the hind part of the neck is destitute of plumage, that it may be the more 

 conveniently drawn in over the breast, but is covered with the long feathers of the 

 throat and sides of the neck that enclose it behind; wings and tail dark glossy 

 green, tipped and bordered with yellowish-white ; legs and feet yellow, tinged be- 

 fore with green, the skin of these thick and movable; belly ashy-brown; irides 

 bright-orange ; head crested and very dark glossy green. 



"The female, as I have particularly observed in numerous instances, differs in 

 nothing, as to color, from the male ; neither of them recefve the long feathers on the 

 back during the first season." Wilson. 



Hab. Canada and Oregon, southward to northern South America and the West 

 Indies ; rare or absent in the middle province. 



The Green Heron is known by a variety of local names, some of 

 which are much more expressive than elegant. This bird, the most 

 common and abundant of all our Herons, is found throughout the 

 State, frequenting rivers, streams and ponds. It arrives in this sec- 

 tion occasionally as early as the first week in April, from the Southern 

 States, where it resides when the chilling blasts of winter have frozen 

 over our streams and marshes. This species sometimes breeds in 

 small companies ; generally, however, but two or three pairs are found 

 nesting together. The nests, built of sticks and twigs, are placed in 

 low bushes or small trees adjacent to a stream or pond. The nests 

 frequently are built in apple orchards. Indeed, the largest number 

 of nests that I ever found in one locality was in an apple-orchard 

 along the Brandywine, where for several years some twenty-five or 

 thirty of these birds annually resorted. While it is true that I have 

 found these Herons breeding in small numbers with the Night and 

 Great Blue Herons in Pennsylvania, and also in Florida in company 

 with the Little Blue, Louisiana and Snowy Herons, and even some- 

 times in the colonies of Water Turkeys and Cormorants, I think, as a 

 rule, they usually prefer to remain by themselves during the season 

 of reproduction as well as at other times. Various writers state that 

 the eggs are four in number. I have examined many nests, and con- 

 sider the usual complement to be not less than five ; frequently six 



