GREEN HERON. £03 
smaller but more elegant and showy one, appears to be nearly or quite 
coincident, it would appear that the larger bird is much the most num- 
erous in this State, as well as regular in its visits. 
ARDEA VIRESCENS Linnzeus. 
Green Heron. 
Ardea virescens, KIRTLAND, Ohio Geolog. Surv., 183%, 165.—Copg, Zool. Sketch of Ohio, 
Walling and Gray’s Atlas of Ohio, 1872, 25.—WHEATON, Food of Birds, ete., Ohio 
Agric. Rep. for 1874, 1875, 573; Reprint, 13.—LanGpon, Cat. Birds of Cin., 1877, 15. 
Butorides virescens, WHEATON, Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1860, 1861, 363.— LanGpon, Revised 
List, Journ. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 184; Reprint, 13; Summer Birds, ib., iii, 
1880, 227, 
Ardea virescens, LINNZUS, Syst. Nat., i, 1766, 238. 
Butorides virescens, BONAPARTE, Cousp. Av., ii, 1855, 128. 
Adultin the breeding séason with the crown, long soft occipital creat, and lengthened 
narrow feathers of the back lestrous dark-green, sometimes with a bronzy iridescence, 
and on the back often with a glaucous cast; wing-coverts green, with conspicuous tawny 
ed gings; neck purplish-chestnut, the throat line variegated with dusky or whitish; under 
parts mostly dark brownish.ash, belly variegated with white; quills and tail green- 
ish-dusky with a glaucous shade, edge of the wing white; some of the quills usually 
white tipped; bill greenish-black, much of the under mandible yellow; lores and iris 
yellow; legs greenish-yellow; lower neck with lengthened feathers in front, a bare 
space behind. Young with the head less crested, the back without long plumes, but 
glossy greenish, neck merely reddish-brown, and whole under parts white, variegated 
with tawny and dark-brown. Length, 16-18; wing, about 7; bill, 24; tarsus, 2; mid- 
dle toe and claw, about the same; tibia bare | or less. 
Habitat, United States generally, breeding throughent and wintering in the South. 
Mexico. West Indies. Central America to Venezuela. 
Abundant summer resident, from April 1, to October. Breeds. The 
most numerous of the family in the State. Everywhere a well known 
and unpopular bird. It has numerous common names, among which 
Fiy-up the-creek is probably the most refined. It is much less abundant 
in this immediate vicinity than formerly, where, once unsuspicious, it 
has become quite shy and wary. 
The nest of the Green Heron is composed of twigs, placed in small tree 
in a swamp or on the border of a stream, not unfrequently in an orchard 
at a distance from water. The eggs are light greenish-blue. 
Genus NYCTIARDEA. Swainson. 
Powder-down-tracts asin Ardea. No elongated or peculiar feathers of neck or back 
at any season. Tail feathers twelve. Sexes similar. 
