308 
NIGHT HERON. 
Orleans, for being in that city in the month of June, I frequently ob- 
served 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 expan- 
sion of the gullet immediately under the bill, that narrowed 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 circumstance, that they act the part of a comb, to rid the bird of 
vermin, in those parts which it cannot reach with its bill. 
Note. — In those specimens which I have procured in the breeding 
season, I have taken notice that the lores and orbits were of a bluish 
white ; but in a female individual, which I shot in East Florida, in the 
month of March, these parts were of a delicate violet color. 
The Brown Bittern of Catesby (Vol. r., pi. 78), which has not a 
little confounded ornithologists, is undoubtedly the young of the Night 
Heron. Dr. Latham says of the former, " we believe it to be a female 
of the Green Heron. — They certainly differ," continues he, " as Brisson 
has described them ; but by comparison, no one can fail of being of the 
opinion here advanced." If the worthy naturalist had had the same 
opportunities of comparing the two birds in question as we have had, he 
would have been as confident that they are not the same, as we are. — 
a. Ord. 
