116 
THE GREAT HERON. 
exception of size, and the rust-coloured thighs of the present, 
they are extremely alike. The Common Heron of Europe, 
however, is not an inhabitant of the United States. 
The Great Heron does not receive his full plumage during 
the first season, nor until the summer of the second. In 
the first season, the young birds are entirely destitute of the 
white plumage of the crown, and the long, pointed feathers 
of the back, shoulders, and breast. In this dress I have 
frequently shot them in autumn; but in the third year, 
both males and females have assumed their complete dress, 
and, contrary to all the European accounts which I have 
met with, both are then so nearly alike in colour and 
markings, as scarcely to be distinguished from each other, 
both having the long, flowing crest, and all the ornamental, 
white, pointed plumage of the back and breast. Indeed, 
this sameness in the plumage of the males and females, 
when arrived at their perfect state, is a characteristic of the 
whole of the genus with which I am acquainted. Whether 
it be different with those of Europe, or that the young and 
imperfect birds have been hitherto mistaken for females, I 
will not pretend to say, though I think the latter conjecture 
highly probable, as the night raven has been known in 
Europe for several centuries, and yet, in all their accounts, 
the sameness of the colours and plumage of the male and 
female of that bird is nowhere mentioned ; on the contrary, 
the young, or yearling bird, has been universally described 
as the female. 
