PEALE’S EGRET HERON. 
109 
have been set forth in the first page of this article, we have to 
state that it is dedicated, to Mr. Titian Peale, by whom it was 
first shot for us in Florida, as a just compliment to a naturalist 
to whom American Zoology owes so much, and from whom so 
much may still be expected, retaining as he does all that zeal for 
science for which his family has been long conspicuous. 
We regret not being able to relate any peculiarity in the habits 
of this bird, which besides Florida, inhabits other analogous 
climates of America. It is never seen in the middle states, but 
appears not to be rare in Florida, for since the individual first 
brought by Mr. Peale, we have observed it in almost all the 
collections of birds sent from that country. 
Peale’s Egret Heron is twenty-six inches long: the bill five 
inches, flesh-colour for nearly three inches from the base, then 
black to the point; the lora and naked parts of the face are of the 
same flesh-colour, but more delicate : the plumage is uniformly 
and without exception snowy white, as in all the Egrets: the head 
nearly from the origin of the bill down to the neck, is thickly and 
densely set with a large crest, formed of numerous, compact, 
subulate feathers, more than three inches long; a bunch of these 
feathers, precisely of the same texture, and even longer, hangs 
down from the front part of the neck. The structure of these 
feathers most resembles that of the corresponding plumes of the 
Jl. Garzetta , and is totally different from those of the candidissima. 
The long flowing plumes of the back are filiform, or criniform, 
rather than silky, being by no means delicate, and reach much 
beyond the tail, with their rays quite straight and rather stiff, 
and by no means curled, nodding, or divaricate, as in the candi¬ 
dissima. The wings are thirteen inches long: the tail is four. 
The legs, including the toes and nails, are all black, the toes 
yellow beneath: the nakedness of the tibia extends more than 
three inches: the tarsus is full six inches long, that is, twice as 
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