36 
ARDEA CANDIDISSIMA. 
wholly of sticks. Each had in it three eggs, of a pale 
greenish blue colour, and measuring an inch and three 
quarters in length, by an inch and a quarter in thick- 
ness. Forty or fifty of these eggs were cooked, and 
found to be well tasted ; the white was of a bluish tint, 
and almost transparent, though boiled for a considerable 
time ; the yolk very small in quantity. The birds rose 
in vast numbers, but without clamour, alighting on the 
tops of the trees around, and watching the result in 
silent anxiety. Among them were numbers of the 
night* heron, and two or three purple-headed herons. 
Great quantities of egg shells lay scattered under the 
trees, occasioned by the depredations of the crows, who 
were continually hovering about the place. On one of 
the nests I found the dead body of the bird itself, half 
devoured by the hawks, croAVS, or gulls. She had 
probably perished in defence of her eggs. 
The sno\A r y heron is seen at all times during summer 
among the salt marshes, watching and searching for 
food, or passing, sometimes in flocks, from one part of 
the bay to the other. They often make excursions up 
the rivers and inlets, but return regularly in the evening 
to the red cedars on the beach to roost. I found these 
birds on the Mississippi, early in June, as far up as 
Fort Adams, roaming about among the creeks and 
inundated Avoods. 
The length of this species is two feet one inch; 
extent, three feet tAvo inches ,* the bill is four inches 
and a quarter long, and grooved ; the space from the 
nostril to the eye, orange yellow, the rest of the bill 
black ; irides, vivid orange ; the whole plumage is of 
a snoAA^y AA hiteness; the head is largely crested with 
loose unwebbed feathers, nearly four inches in length ; 
another tuft of the same covers the breast ; but the most 
distinguished ornament of this bird is a bunch of long 
silky plumes, proceeding from the shoulders, covering 
the whole back, and extending beyond the tail, the 
shafts of these are six or seven inches long, extremely 
elastic, tapering to the extremities, and thinly set Avitn 
long, slender, bending threads or fibres, easily agitated 
