LOUISIANA HERON. 
33 
three quarters; others measured nearly seven inches in the 
whole length, and the bill upwards of an inch. In their general 
appearance, they greatly resemble the stints or least snipe ; 
but unless we allow that the same species may sometimes have 
the toes half webbed, and sometimes divided to the origin, — 
and this not in one or two solitary instances, but in whole 
flocks, which would be extraordinary indeed, — we cannot avoid 
classing this as a new and distinct species. 
LOUISIANA HERON ARDEA LUDOVICIANA. 
Plate LXIV. Fig. 1. 
Peale's Museurtii No. 3750. 
ARDEA LUDO Wilson. 
Axdea leucogaster, Ord's Reprinty Part viii. p. 1.— Ardea Ludoviciana, JBonap. 
Synop. p. 304. 
This is a rare and delicately formed species ; occasionally 
found on the swampy river shores of South Carolina, but more 
frequently along the borders of the Mississippi, particularly 
below New Orleans. In each of these places it is migratory ; 
and in the latter, as I have been informed, builds its nest on 
trees, amidst the inundated woods. Its manners correspond 
very much with those of the Blue Heron. It is quick in all 
its motions, darting about after its prey with surprising agility. 
Small fish, frogs, lizards, tadpoles, and various aquatic insects, 
constitute its principal food. 
There is a bird described by Latham in his General Synop- 
sis, vol. iii. p. 88. called the Demi Egret, ^ which, from the ac- 
count there given, seems to approach near to the present spe- 
cies. It is said to inhabit Cayenne. 
Length of the Louisiana heron, from the point of the bill to 
the extremity of the tail, twenty-three inches ; the long hair- 
like plumage of the rump and lower part of the back extends 
* See also Buffon, voL vii. p. 378. 
VOL. III. 
C 
