YELLOW-CROWNED HERON. 
315 
swampy woods, and feeding only in the night. It builds in societies, 
making its nest with sticks among the branches of low trees, and lays 
four pale blue eggs. The species is not numerous in Carolina, which, 
with its solitary mode of life, makes this bird but little known there. 
It abounds on the Bahama Islands, where it also breeds, and great num- 
bers of the young, as we are told, are yearly taken for the table, being 
accounted in that quarter excellent eating. This bird also extends its 
migrations into Virginia, and even farther north ; one of them having 
been shot a few years ago on the borders of the Schuylkill below 
Philadelphia. 
The food of this species consists of small fish, crabs and lizards, par- 
ticularly the former ; it also appears to have a strong attachment to the 
neighborhood of the ocean. 
The Yellow-crowned Heron is twenty-two inches in length, from the 
point. of the bill to the end of the tail; the long flowing plumes of the 
back extend four inches farther ; breadth from tip to tip of the expanded 
wings thirty-four inches ; bill black, stout, and about four inches in 
length, the upper mandible grooved exactly like that of the common 
Night Heron ; lores pale green ; irides fiery red ; head and part of the 
neck black, marked on each cheek with an oblong spot of white ; crested 
crown and upper part of the head white, ending in two long narrow 
tapering plumes of pure white, more than seven inches long ; under 
these are a few others of a blackish color ; rest of the neck and whole 
lower parts fine ash, somewhat whitish on that part of the neck where it 
joins the black ; upper parts a dark ash, each feather streaked broadly 
down the centre with black, and bordered with white ; wing quills deep 
slate, edged finely with white ; tail even at the end, and of the same ash 
color ; wing coverts deep slate, broadly edged with pale cream ; from 
each shoulder proceed a number of long loosely webbed tapering 
feathers, of an ash color, streaked broadly down the middle with black, 
and extending four inches or more beyond the tips of the wings ; legs 
and feet yellow ; middle claw pectinated. Male and female, as in the 
common Night Heron, alike in plumage. 
I strongly suspect that the species called by naturalists the Cayenne 
Night Heron (Ardea Cayanensis), is nothing more than the present, 
with which, according to their descriptions, it seems to agree almost 
exactly. 
