4 1 8 SATO WY HERON. 



me* From a more careful comparison, however, of both 

 birds, I am satisfied that they are two entirely different and 

 distinct species. These differences consist in the large flowing 

 crest, yellow feet, and singularly curled plumes of the back of 

 the present ; it is also nearly double the size of the European 

 species. 



The snowy heron seems particularly fond of the salt marshes 

 during summer, seldom penetrating far inland. Its white 

 plumage renders it a very conspicuous object, either while on 

 wing or while wading the meadows or marshes. Its food con- 

 sists of those small crabs usually called fiddlers, mud worms, 

 snails, frogs, and lizards. It also feeds on the seeds of some 

 species of nymphcs, and of several other aquatic plants. 



On the 19th of May I visited an extensive breeding place 

 of the snowy heron among the red cedars of Summers's Beach, 

 on the coast of Cape May. The situation was very seques- 

 tered, bounded on the land side by a fresh-water marsh or 

 pond, and sheltered from the Atlantic by ranges of sandhills. 

 The cedars, though not high, were so closely crowded together 

 as to render it difficult to penetrate through among them. 

 Some trees contained three, others four nests, built wholly of 

 sticks. Each had in it three eggs, of a pale greenish blue 

 colour, and measuring an inch and three-quarters in length, 

 by an inch and a quarter in thickness. Forty or fifty of these 

 eggs were cooked, and found to be well tasted ; the white was 

 of a bluish tint, and almost transparent, though boiled for a 

 considerable time; the yolk very small in quantity. The birds 

 rose in vast numbers, but without clamour, alighting on the 

 tops of the trees around, and watching the result in silent 

 anxiety. Among them were numbers of the night heron, and 

 two or three purple-headed herons. Great quantities of egg- 

 shells lay scattered under the trees, occasioned by the depre- 

 dations of the crows, who were continually hovering about the 

 place. In one of the nests I found the dead body of the bird 



* "On the American continent the little egret is met with, at New 

 York and Long Island." — Latham, voL iii. p. 90. 



