30 
ARDEA IIERODIAS. 
have probably been ranked as the original stock, ol 
which the present was a mere degfenerated specic^i 
were it not that the American is greatly superior, ii’ 
size and weight, to the European species, the forme( 
measuring four feet four inches, and weighing upward^ 
of seven pounds ; the latter, three feet three inched 
and rarely weighing more than four pounds. Yet, witk 
the exception of size, and the rust coloured thighs ol 
the present, they are extremely alike. Tlie common 
heron of Europe, however, is not an iuhahitant of th* 
United States. 
Tlie great heron does not receive his full pluraag* 
during the first season, nor until the summer of tb« 
second. In the first season, the young birds are eutirelf 
destitute of the white plumage of tlie crown, and tb< 
long pointed feathers ot the back, shoulders, and breast 
In this dress I have fretjuently shot tliem in autumn 
But in the third year, Itotli males and females have 
assumed their complete dress, and, contrary to all thn 
European aocouiits which I have met with, both ait 
then so nearly alike in colour and markings, as scarcely 
to be distinguished from each other, both bavinn- thV 
long flowing crest, and all the ornamental white pointed 
plumage of the back and breast. Indeed, this saraenest 
in the plumage of the males and females, when arrived 
at their perfect state, is a characteristic of the whole ot 
the genus with which I am acquainted. Whether it bf 
different with those of Europe, or that the young and 
imperfect birds have been hitherto mistaken for female* 
I M'ill not pretend to saj’-, though I think the lattet 
conjecture highly probable, as the night raven (ardeH 
nycticorax) has been known in Europe for several 
centuries, and yet, in all their accounts, the sameues!* 
of the colours and plumage of the male and female of 
that bird, is nowhere mentioned ; on the contrary, the 
young or yearling bird has been universally desenbed 
as the female. 
On the 18th of May I examined, both externally and 
by dissection, five specimens of the great heron, all 
complete plumage, killed in a cedar swamp near tb* 
