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THE SNOWY HERON 
Ardea candidissima, Gmel. 
PLATE COCLXXIY.— Male. 
This beautiful species is a constant resident in Florida and Louisiana, 
where thousands are seen during winter, and where many remain during the 
breeding season. It is perhaps of a still more delicate constitution than 
the Blue Heron, Ardea cceralea, as no individuals remain in the neighbour- 
hood of Charleston when the winter happens to be rather colder than 
usual. In its migrations eastward it rarely proceeds farther than Long 
Island in the State of New York ; few are seen in Massachusetts, and none 
farther to the east. My friend Professor MacCulloch never heard of it in 
Nova Scotia, and I cannot imagine on what authority Wilsox stated that 
it inhabits the sea-coast of North America to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. My 
friend Nuttall also asserts, without mentioning on what evidence, that, by 
pursuing an inland course, it reaches its final destination in the wilds of 
Canada. It has not been observed in any part of the western country ; nay, 
it rarely ascends the Mississippi as high as Memphis, or about two hundred 
miles from the mouth of the Ohio, and cannot be said to be at all abundant 
much farther up the great river than Natchez. In fact, the maritime dis- 
tricts furnish its favourite places of resort, and it rarely proceeds farther 
inland than fifty or sixty miles, even in the flat portions of the Carolinas, or 
in the Middle States, where it prefers the islands along the Atlantic coast - . 
While I was at Charleston, in March 1831, few had arrived from the 
Fioridas by the 18th of that month, but on the 25th thousands were seen in 
the marshes and rice-fields all in full plumage. They reach the shores of 
New Jersey about the first week of May, when they may be seen on all 
parts of the coast between that district and the Gulf of Mexico. On the 
Mississippi, they seldom reach the low grounds about Natchez, where they 
also breed, earlier than the period to which they appear in the Middle States. 
While migrating, they fly both by night and by day, in loose flocks of 
from twenty to a hundred individuals, sometimes arranging themselves in a 
broad front, then forming lines, and again proceeding in a straggling manner. 
They keep perfectly silent, and move at a height seldom exceeding a hun 
dred yards. Their flight is light, undetermined as it were, yet well sustain 
