ARDEIDJE — THE HERONS — GARZETTA. 
27 
same pair. When the nest is on a tall tree, the young remain in it or on the branches 
until they are able to fly ; but when it is near the water or ground, they leave much 
sooner. 
The number of eggs in a nest in Florida, according to Audubon, is invariably 
three. According to Wilson, in New Jersey the number is four or five. Audubon 
gives their size as two and a quarter inches in length and one and five eighths in 
breadth, and their color a pale blue, which soon fades. Two eggs in my collection, 
obtained in Florida by Dr. Bryant, measure, one 2.30 x 1.52 inches ; the other 2.28 
X 1.60 inches. They are oval in shape, nearly equal at either end, and their color is 
that uniform unspotted washing or faint shading of greenish Prussian blue, common 
to all our herons, the two bitterns alone excepted. 
Genus GARZETTA, Kaup. 
Garzetta, Kaup, Nat. Syst. Eur. Thienv. 1829, 76. Bonaf. Consp. II. 1855, 118 (type, Ardca 
garzetta, Linn.). 
Gen. Char. Small white Herons, crested at all ages and seasons, and in the nuptial season 
adorned with jugular and dorsal plumes. Bill slender, very little compressed, the culinen decidedly 
but ascending ; the lower edge of the mandibular rami straight or appreciably concave. Mental 
curved for the terminal half, somewhat depressed for the basal half ; the gonys nearly straight, 
A 
G. canclidissima. 
apices falling far short of reaching half-way from the middle of the eye to the point of the bill ; 
malar apices reaching just as far as the frontal apices, and falling far short of the posterior end of 
the nostrils. Toes short, the middle one but little more than one half the tarsus, the hallux 
about one half its length ; bare portion of tibia nearly three fourths as long as the tarsus. Tarsal 
scut el he as in Herodias. 
Nuptial plumes adorning the occiput, jugulum, and back ; these, in the American species, all 
of similar structure, having decomposed webs ; but in the Old World species, those of the occiput 
and jugulum narrow and with compact webs. Dorsal plumes (in all species) reaching but little 
beyond the tail, and strongly recurved at ends. 
