56 
ALTRICIAL GRALLATORES — HERODIONES. 
Hab. The whole of temperate and tropical America, from British America to Chili and the 
Falkland Islands. Part of the West Indies; Bermudas. 
Sp. Char. Adult : Pileum, scapulars, and interscapulars, glossy hlackish bottle-green ; fore- 
head, postocular, malar, and gular regions, and medial lower parts, white ; lateral lower parts and 
neck, except in front, pale ash-gray, with a slight lilaceous tinge ; wings, rump, upper tail-coverts 
and tail, deeper ash-gray. Occijntal plumes pure white. Bill black ; lores and orbits yellowish 
green ; iris bright red; legs and feet yellow; claws brown. [Audubon.] Young, second year : 
Similar to the adult, but scapulars and interscapulars cinereous, like the wings, and the white of 
the forehead obscured by the blackish of the crown ; the colors generally more sombre, with neck 
and lower parts more decidedly ashy. Young, first year : Above, grayish brown, with more or less 
of a cinnamon cast, especially on the remiges, each feather marked with a medial tear-shaped, or 
wedge-shaped stripe of white, the remiges with small white terminal spots ; rectrices plain ash- 
gray. Sides of the head and neck, and entire lower parts, striped longitudinally with grayish 
brown and dull white ; chin and throat plain white medially. Bill light apple-green, the upper 
half of the maxilla blackish, the mandible with a tinge of the same near the end ; lores light 
apple-green ; eyelids similar, but brighter — more yellowish, their inner edge black ; iris dark 
chrome-yellow or dull orange ; legs and feet light yellowish apple-green ; claws grayish horn- 
color. 1 
Length about 24.00-26.00; expanse, 44.00. Weight, 1 lb. 14 oz. (Audubon). Wing, 11.00- 
12-80; tail, 4.20-5.30; culmen, 2.80-3.10; depth of bill, .70-85 ; tarsus, 3.10-3.40; middle 
toe, 2.65-3.10 ; bare portion of tibia, .90-1 .40. 2 
The series of specimens at hand is unfortunately too small to justify an opinion as to whether 
the American Night Herons are really separable as a geographical race from those of the Old 
World, or whether there are two races in America. Authors recognize a N. obscurus from the 
southern part of South America, but ten specimens from that region compared with thirteen from 
Northern America certainly do not indicate any constant difference, notwithstanding a certain 
proportion (in this case four of the eight specimens before us, or one half) are more or less darker, 
though only a small proportion of them are very much darker ; while of the other four, two are as 
light-colored as the very palest of northern ones, the others being about like the average. There 
being no other differences beyond the slightly larger average size of the southern birds (especially 
noticeable in those from the high districts of Peru and Chili), we are hardly inclined, for the 
present, at least, to recognize a var. obscurus, but, on the other hand, to look upon the latter as the 
expression of a tendency to partial melanism affecting this species in certain localities of the regions 
indicated, this tendency, moreover, perhaps affecting only some individuals in such localities. 
1 From a specimen killed August 13, 1879, near Washington, D. C. 
2 Extremes of thirteen examples from North and Middle America. 
