442 YELLOW-CROWNED HERON. 



snowy ; rest of the wing, pale reddish brown, elegantly barred 

 with undulating lines of black ; tail, slightly rounded, of an 

 ashy brown, beautifully marked with herring-bones of black ; 

 legs and naked thighs, very pale light blue or lead colour, the 

 middle toe connected with the two outer ones as far as the first 

 joint by a membrane, and bordered along the sides with a 

 thick warty edge ; lining of the wing, dark rufous, approaching 

 a chestnut, and thinly spotted with black. Male and female 

 alike in plumage. The bill continues to grow in length until 

 the second season, when the bird receives its perfect plumage. 

 The stomach of this species is lined with an extremely thick 

 skin, feeling to the touch like the rough hardened palm of a 

 sailor or blacksmith. The intestines are very tender, mea- 

 suring usually about three feet in length, and as thick as 

 a swan's quill. On the front, under the skin, there are two 

 thick callosities, which border the upper sides of the eye, lying 

 close to the skull. These are common, I believe, to most of 

 the tringa and scolopax tribes, and are probably designed to 

 protect the skull from injury while the bird is probing and 

 searching in the sand and mud. 



YELLOW-CEO WNED HERON. (Ardea violacea.) 



PLATE LXV.— Fig. 1. 



Le Crabier de Bahama, Briss. v. p. 481, 41. — Crested Bittern, Catesby, i. p. 79. 

 — Le Crabier Gris de Per, Buff. viL p. 399.— Arct. Zool. No. 352.— Peak's 

 Museum, No. 3738. 



NYCTICORAX VIOLACEA.— Bonaparte.* 

 Ardea violacea, Bonap. Synop. p. 306. 



This is one of the nocturnal species of the heron tribe, whose 

 manners, place, and mode of building its nest, resemble greatly 



* This curious species is an instance of one of those connecting links 

 ■which intervene constantly among what have heen defined fixed groups. 

 The general form and appearance is decidedly a Nycticorax, and at the 

 extremity of that form we should place it. Its manners and social 

 manner of breeding are exactly those of the qua-bird, but it possesses 



