ALTRICIAL GRALLATORES — HERODIONES. 
on 
0J1 
During the summer, in Louisiana, the young of this species resort to commons and 
dry pastures, to feed on insects of many kinds. Mr. Moore has seen a flock of a dozen 
hovering pretty close together above a shoal of minnows in the bay, settling down 
with their legs hanging and dangling near the water, and attempting to seize them 
by reaching down their bills. In the confusion of wings, legs, and necks so near 
together, it was impossible to tell whether they took any fish, but he presumes that 
they did. He has found their eggs from the 10th to the 25tli of April, and a second 
brood on the 1st of June. Two eggs of this Heron, in my collection, taken by Dr. 
Bryant in Florida, have an oval shape, are equally rounded at either end, and are ot 
a uniform light greenish-blue tint. There is just a shade more of green tinting the 
Prussian blue in this than in the other kinds of Heron. One egg measures 1.87 inches 
in length by 1.36 inches in breadth ; the other is 1.80 inches long by 1.30 inches in 
breadth. The egg is more oblong than that of the ccerulea, but is more rounded than 
that of the ludoviciana. 
Genus DICHROMANASSA, Ridgway. 
<“ Demiegretta" (nec Blyth), Baird, B. N. Am. 1858! 660 (part). 
= Dicliromanassa, Ridgw. Bull. U. S. Geol. & Geog. Survey, Terr. IV. no. 1, Feb. 5, 1878, 246. 
Type, Ardca rufa, Bodd. 
<Eroclius, Reichenow, Jour, fur Orn. 1877, 268 (includes Hydra, nassa, Hcrodius, Lcptherodius, and 
Garzetta). 
Gen. Chars. Medium sized Herons, of uniform white or plumbeous plumage, with (adult) or 
without (young) cinnamon-colored head and neck ; the form slender, the toes very short, and the 
legs very long ; the adults with the entire head and neck (except throat and foreneck) covered 
with long, narrowly lanceolate, compact-webbed feathers, which on the occiput form an ample 
crest, the feathers of which are very narrowly lanceolate and decurved. 
Bill much longer than the middle toe (about two thirds the tarsus), the upper and louver out- 
lines almost precisely similar in contour, being nearly parallel along the middle portion, w'here 
slightly approximated ; the terminal portion of both culmen and gonys gently and about equally 
curved. Mental apex extending to a little more than one third the distance from the middle of 
the eye to the tip of the bill, or to about even with the anterior end of the nostril ; malar apex 
about even with that of the frontal feathers. Toes very short, the middle one less than half the 
tarsus, the hallux less than half the middle toe ; bare portion of tibia more than half as long as 
tarsus ; scutellation of tarsus, etc., as in Herodias , Garzetta, and allied genera. 
Plumes of the adult consisting of a more or less lengthened train of fastigiate, stiff-shafted feath- 
ers, with long, loose, and straight plumules, and extending beyond the tail ; in addition to this 
train, the scapulars and the feathers of the whole head and neck, except the throat and foreneck, 
are long and narrow, distinctly lanceolate, and acuminate, with compact webs, and on the occiput 
are developed into an ample decurved crest. 
Affinities. — This genus is perhaps most nearly allied to Demiegretta, Blyth, 1 with which it 
agrees quite closely in the form of the bill, and also, to a considerable extent, in coloration. 
Demiegretta , however, is at once distinguished by its extremely short tarsus (much shorter than 
the bill, instead of nearly a third longer !), which is altogether more abbreviated than in any 
American genus of this group, in proportion to the other dimensions. The plumes also are 
entirely different, there being none on the neck, with the exception of the jugulum, while those 
of the back are slenderly lanceolate, with compact webs, almost exactly as in Florida ccerulea. 
1 Type, Ardca jugularis, Blyth, Notes on the Fauna of the Nicohar Islands, Journ. Asiatic Soc. 
Bengal, xv. 1846, 376, = Herodias concolor, Bonap. Consp. ii. 1855, 121, = Ardca sacra, Gmel. This 
Heron also is dichromatic, having a pure-white phase as in Dichromanassa rufa, the normal plumage 
being uniform dark plumbeous or slate. 
