4 
GREEN HERON. 
birds are seen in our meadows and marshes, but never remain 
during winter in any part of the United States. 
The green bittern is eighteen inches long, and twenty-live 
inches in extent ; bill black, lighter below, and yellow at the 
base ; chin, and narrow streak down the throat, yellowish 
white ; neck, dark vinaceous red ; back, covered with very 
long, tapering, pointed feathers, of a hoary green, shafted with 
white, on a dark green ground ; the hind part of the neck is 
destitute of plumage, that it may be the more conveniently 
drawn in over the breast, but is covered with the long feathers 
of the throat and sides of the neck, that enclose it behind ; 
wings and tail, dark glossy green, tipt and bordered with yel- 
lowish white ; legs and feet, yellow, tinged before with green, 
the skin of these thick and movable ; belly, ashy brown ; irides, 
bright orange ; crested head, very dark glossy green. The 
female, as I have particularly observed, in numerous instances, 
differs in nothing, as to colour, from the male ; neither of 
them receive the long feathers on the back during the first 
season. 
There is one circumstance attending this bird, which, I re- 
collect, at first surprised me. On shooting and wounding one, 
I carried it some distance by the legs, which were at first 
yellow; but on reaching home, I perceived, to my surprise, 
that they were red. On letting the bird remain some time 
undisturbed, they again became yellow, and I then discovered 
that the action of the hand had brought a flow of blood into 
them, and produced the change of colour. I have remarked 
the same in those of the night heron. 
