120 



SNOWY HERON.* 

 ARDEA CANDIDISSIMA. 

 [Plate LXIL— Fig. 4.] 



TuRT. 8ijsi. p. 380. — ^Lath. Syn, v. 3, p. 92, JVo. 61. — Peale's Museum^ J\^o. 3785. 



THIS elegant species inhabits the sea coast of North America 

 from the isthmus of Darien to the gulf of St. Lawrence, and is, in 

 the United States, a bird of passage ; arriving from the south early 

 in April, and leaving the middle states again in October. Its ge- 

 neral appearance, resembling so much that of the Little Egret of 

 Europe, has, I doubt not, imposed on some of the naturalists of 

 that country, as I confess it did on me.t 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 consists of those small 

 crabs usually eddied fiddlers^ mud worms, snails, frogs and lizards. 

 It also feeds on the seeds of some species of nymphae, and of se- 

 veral other aquatic plants. 



On the nineteenth of May I visited an extensive breeding place 

 of the Snowy Heron, among the red cedars of Sommers^s beach, 



^ Named in the plate, by mistake, the Little Egret. 



f "On the American continent the Tattle Egret is met with at New York and lAm^ islanil." 

 Lath. V. 3, p. 90. 



