GREAT WHITE HERON. 
9 
deep dusky, marked on the tips with a spot of white ; eye, 
vivid orange ; belly white, streaked with dusky, the feathers 
being pale dusky, streaked down their centres with white ; legs 
and feet, light green ; inside of the middle claw slightly pecti- 
nated ; body and wings exceedingly thin and limber ; the down 
still stuck in slight tufts to the tips of some of the feathers. 
The birds also breed in great numbers in the neighbourhood 
of New Orleans ; for, being in that city in the month of June, 
I frequently observed the Indians sitting in market with the 
dead and living young birds for sale ; also numbers of grey 
owls {strix nehulosa)^ and the white ibis {tantalus albus)^ for 
which nice dainties I observed they generally found purchasers. 
The food of the night heron, or qua-bird, is chiefly compo- 
sed of small fish, which it takes by night. Those that I opened 
had a large expansion of the gullet immediately under the bill, 
that narrowed from thence to the stomach, which is a large 
oblong pouch, and was filled with fish. The teeth of the pec- 
tinated claw were thirty-five or forty in number, and, as they 
contained particles of the down of the bird, showed evidently, 
from this circumstance, that they act the part of a comb, to rid 
the bird of vermin in those parts which it cannot reach with its 
bill. 
GREAT WHITE HERON.— ARDEA EGRETTA Plate LXI. 
Fig. 4. 
EGRETTA Jardine.* 
Ardea leuce, Ulig , — Ardea alba, Bonap. Synop. p. 304. — Ardea egretta, Wagl. 
Syst. av. No. 7. — JBonap. monog. del gruppo Egretta, osserv. sulla, 2c? Edit, del 
reg. anim. Cuv. 
This tall and elegant bird, though often seen, during the 
summer, in our low marshes and inundated meadows, yet, on 
* Among no birds has there occurred so much confusion as among the white 
herons, or those more particularly forming the division, Egretts. They are dis- 
tributed over every country of the world, are not very different in size, the 
young are chiefly distinguished by the want of the crest, and are in many instances 
