i 
[ 55 ] 
V. Defer ip tion of a Bird from the Eafl 
Indies ; in a Letter to James Weft, 
Lfq\ P ref dent of the Royal Society ; from 
Mr, George Edwards, F. R. S. 
SIR, 
Read Jan. 17, 
1771. 
N Auguft laft, a friend of mine car- 
ried me with him to Valentine Houfe, 
near Ilford in Effex, the feat of Charles Raymond, 
Efq; to fee fome curious birds and other animals, 
from the Eafl Indies j amongft thefe, I difeovered a 
rare bird, not before known to me It is of a 
new genus, and the only fpecies of the genus 
hitherto come to my knowledge. It is about the 
bignefs of a heron [fee Tab. II.] j- and has a 
good deal of the appearance of birds of the heron 
and crane kind, except that the neck is a little 
fhorter. On hrd: fight, I thought the bird belonged 
to that genus ; but, on a clofer view, I judged it to 
be no wader in the water, for though the legs be as 
long or longer than in herons. See. yet they are fea- 
thered down to the knees, which we do not find in 
birds who wade in fihallow waters, to feek their 
* This bird was deferibed, under the name of the Sagittarius 
from the Cape of good Hope, by Mr. Vofmaer, keeper of the 
Statholder’s Mufeum at the Hague, in one of his publications 
in low Dutch, printed at Amfterdam,i769, in 4to,with a coloured 
cut of the faid bird. It Teems to feed equally on flefii and fidi ; 
’^'hich accounts for his uniting the charadlers of birds of prey, 
and of waders in water. M. M» 
food. 
