GREAT* WHITE HERON. 
33 
York. It enters the territories of the United States 
late in February; this I conjecture from having* first 
met with it in the southern parts of Georgia about that 
time. The high inland parts of the country it rarely 
or never visits ; its favourite haunts are vast inundated 
swamps, rice fields, the low marshy shores of rivers, 
and such like places ; w here, from its size and colour, 
it is very conspicuous, even at a great distance. 
The appearance of this bird, during the first season, 
when it is entirely destitute of the long flowing plumes 
of the back, is so different from the same bird in its 
perfect plumage, which it obtains in the third year* 
that naturalists and others very generally consider them 
as two distinct species. The opportunities w r hich I 
have fortunately had of observing them w ith the train 
in various stages of its progress, from its first appearance 
to its full growth, satisfies me that the great white 
heron with, and that without, the long plumes, are one 
and the same species, in different periods of age. In 
the museum of my friend, Mr Peale, there is a specimen 
of this bird, in which the train is wanting ; but on a 
closer examination, its rudiments are plainly to be 
perceived, extending several inches beyond the common 
plumage. 
The great wdiite heron breeds in several of the 
extensive cedar swamps in the lower parts of New 
Jersey. Their nests are built on the trees, in societies ; 
the structure and materials exactly similar to those of 
the snowy heron, but larger. The eggs are usually 
four, of a pale blue colour. In the months of July and 
August the young make their first appearance in the 
meadows and marshes, in parties of twenty or thirty 
together. The large ditches with which the extensive 
meadows below Philadelphia are intersected, are regu- 
larly, about that season, visited by flocks of those 
birds ; these are frequently shot, but the old ones are 
too sagacious to be easily approached. Their food 
consists of frogs, lizards, small fish, insects, seeds of the 
splatterdock, (a species of nymphse,) and small water 
snakes. They will also devour mice and moles, the 
vol. in, c 2 
