162 
LOUISIANA HERON. 
the bird is full grown. The red of the neck is changed for tints of blue and 
purple, as is that of the back, although remnants of it are still seen. The 
fore part of the neck is white, mixed with brownish-red ; the legs lighter. 
Male from Galveston Island. In all the Herons that are furnished with 
elongated feathers on the fore part of the back, these feathers form part of a 
series on each side, arranged in the line of the scapulae, and extending to the 
middle of the neck above. In all the Herons also, when the neck is curved, 
the oesophagus and trachea pass above the line of the vertebrae at its lower 
part on the right side. The mouth is in this as in the other species, its 
width 8 twelfths, the lower mandible dilatable to 1 inch 1 twelfth. Tongue 
1 inch 1 twelfth long, flattened, thin ; grooved above, tapering to a point. 
(Esophagus 16 inches long, at its commencement 11 inches in width, soon 
after contracting to 10 twelfths, and so continuing until it enters the thorax, 
where it enlarges to 1 inch. The right lobe of the liver is 1 inch 11 
twelfths in length, the left lobe 11 inches ; the gall-bladder 8 twelfths long, 
3 twelfths in breadth. The proventricular glands form a belt 10 twelfths 
in breadth. The stomach is small, only 1 inch in diameter, its muscular coat 
rather thick, the tendons roundish, half an inch in breadth ; the pyloric lobe 
71 twelfths long, 4 twelfths in diameter; the inner surface of the stomach as 
in the preceding species. The intestine forms 30 folds, and measures 4 feet 
7 inches in length ; its greatest width scarcely greater than that of a crow 
quill, being only 1 twelfth in the duodenal part, and almost precisely 
uniform in its whole length. The rectum is 31 inches long, 3 twelfths in 
width ; the coecum 3 twelfths long, 11- twelfths wide ; the cloaca globular, 
1 inch 2 twelfths in diameter. 
Trachea 12£ inches long, of the uniform breadth of 2 twelfths, moderately 
flattened. The rings firm, 218, and 4 dimidiate. Bronchial half rings 20 
and 18. Muscles as in the other species. 
