20 
BLUE CRANE. 
BLUE CRANE.— ARDEA C^RULEA — Plate LXIL— Fig. 3. 
Arct. Zool. No. 351. — Cateshy, i. 76. — Le Crabier bleu. Buff. vii. 398. — Sloan 
Jam. ii. 315. — Lath. Syn. iii. p. 78. No. 45 ; p. 79, var. A. — A. cserulescens, 
Turt. Syst. p. 379. — Planch. Enl. 349 P calc's Museum, No. 6782. 
EGRETTA CJlRVLEA.—JKWiinv.. 
Arclea cserulea, Linn. Syst. — Bonap. Synop. p. 300.— Ardea caerulesceus, 
Wagl. Syst. Av. No. 15. 
In mentioning this species in his translation of the Systema 
Natures, 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 yel- 
low legs, the last nearly one half less than the present.* By 
this loose mode of discrimination, the precision of science being 
altogether 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. cceru-- 
merous in the marshes of the coast of Georgia, in the month of January. In 
such multitudes were they along the bordei’s of the streams or passages which 
separate the sea-islands from the main, that their loud and incessant noise became 
quite as disgusting as the monotonous cackle of that intolerable nuisance the 
Guinea fowl.” — Ord's Edit. 
* I have never traced this species in any Australian collection, and have little 
doubt that the authors of the assertion “ that it is found there," will turn out in- 
correct. This bird has all the characters of Egretta except the colour, and 
will certainly belong to that division, though it has been generally restricted to 
those of pure plumage. Bonaparte, in his Nomenclature of Wilson, says “ the 
young birds of the year, before their first moult, are altogether pure white, and 
are therefore apt to be confounded with the young of A. candidissima." Wagler 
in his excellent Systema confirms this, and mentions that, in their farther change, 
the upper parts are pale cinereous tinged with purple, beneath white, the quills 
partly black partly white, the tail cinereous. It is curious that in a species 
clothed with such rich and dark plumage the young should be pure white, the co- 
lour of the true Egretta, while in some of those of snowy covering, the young’ 
are a dusky greyish brown. If it can be mistaken in any state for Egretta 
candidissima, it will at once show where it ought to be placed. — Ed. 
