SPECIES 2. ARBEJi CMRULEA. 
BLUE CRANE, OR HERON. 
[Plate LXII. — Fig. 3.] 
Ayct. Zool.J^o. 351. — Catesby, i, 76 . — Le Crabier bleu, Buff. 
Yii, 398. — Sloan. Jam. ii, 31o. — I.ath. Syn. v. 3, p. 78, JVo. 45, 
— p. 79, var. A. — Ardea ccerulescens, Turt. Syst. p. 379. — 
Peale’s Museum, JVo. 3782.* 
In mentioning this species in his translation of the Sy sterna 
Naturse, Turton has introduced what he calls two varieties, 
one from New .Zealand, the other from Brazil; both of which, 
if we may judge by their size and colour, appear to be entirely 
different and distinct species; the first being green with yellow 
legs, the last nearly one half less than the present. By this 
loose mode of discrimination, the precision of science being al- 
together dispensed with, the whole tribe of Cranes, Herons, and 
Bitterns may be styled mere varieties of the genus Ardea. 
The same writer has still farther increased this confusion, by 
designating as a different species his Bluish Heron {A. cseru- 
lescens,) which agrees almost exactly with the present. Some 
of these mistakes may probably have originated from the figure 
of this bird given by Catesby, which appears to have been drawn 
and coloured, not from nature, but from the glimmering recol- 
lections of memory, and is extremely erroneous. These remarks 
are due to truth, and necessary to the elucidation of the history 
of his species, which seems to be but imperfectly known in 
Europe. 
The Blue Heron is properly a native of the warmer climates 
of the United Stales, migrating thence, at the approach of win- 
ter, to the tropical regions; being found in Cayenne, Jamaica, 
* Heron bleudtre de Cayenne, Buff. PI. Enl. 549, adult. 
