GREAT WHITE HERON. 



403 



deep dusky, marked on the tips with a spot of white ; eye, 

 vivid orange ; belly, white, streaked with dusky, the feathers 

 being pale dusky, streaked down their centres with white ; leo-g 

 and feet, light green ; inside of the middle claw slightly pecti- 

 nated ; body and wings exceedingly thin and limber ; the down 

 still stuck in slight tufts to the tips of some of the feathers. 



The birds also breed in great numbers in the neighbourhood 

 of New Orleans ; for being in that city in the month of June, 

 I frequently observed the Indians sitting in market with the 

 dead and living young birds for sale ; also numbers of gray 

 owls (Strix nebulosa), and the white ibis (Tantalus albus), for 

 which nice dainties I observed they generally found purchasers. 



The food of the night heron or qua-bird is chiefly composed 

 of small fish, which it takes by night. Those that I opened 

 had a large expansion of the gullet immediately under the 

 bill, that narrowed from thence to the stomach, which is a 

 large oblong pouch, and was filled with fish. The teeth of the 

 pectinated claw were thirty-five or forty in number, and as they 

 contained particles of the down of the bird, showed evidently, 

 from this circamstance, that they act the part of a comb, to 

 rid the bird of vermin in those part which it cannot reach with 

 its bill. 



GEEAT WHITE HEKON. {Ardea egretta.) 



PLATE LXL— Fig. 4. 



EGRETTA LEUCE.— J AnvmE. * 



Ardea leuce, Illig. — Ardea alba, Bonap. Synop. p. 304. — Ardea egretta, Wagl. 

 Syst. Av. No. 7. — Bonap. Monog. del Gruppo Egretta, Osserv. Sulla, 2d edit. 

 Bel Beg. Anim. Cuv. 



This tall and elegant bird, though often seen during the 

 summer in our low marshes and inundated meadows, yet, on 



* Among no birds has there occurred so much confusion as among the 

 white herons, or those more particularly forming the division Egretts. 

 They are distributed over every country of the world, are not very 

 different in size, the young are chiefly distinguished by the want of the 

 crest, and are in many instances of a plumage similar to the full 



