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Range (Tropical and temperate America)

Tropical and temperate America; breeds as far north as southern Illinois and Virginia; after the breeding season sometimes strays northward as far as Manitoba, Quebec, and New Brunswick.

Washington, not common and irregular S. R., May to August. Long Island, rare from July to Sept. Sing Sing, A. V.

Nest, a platform of sticks, in colonies, in bushes over water. Eggs, three to five, dull blue, of a rather deeper shade than those of the preceding, 2.25 x 1.60.

Tourists who went to Florida thirty years ago have told me of prairies white with Egrets, of bushy islands glistening in the sun like snow banks. Now you may look for miles along a lake shore and perhaps in the distance see a solitary Egret, which, as you approach, with a frightened squawk takes wing a rifle-shot away. The rapid extermination of these plume-bearing birds is startling evidence of man's power in the animal world. At his word a species is almost immediately wiped out of existence. I have heard a "plume-hunter" boast of killing three hundred Herons in a "rookery" in one afternoon. Another proudly stated that he and his companions had killed one hundred and thirty thousand birds-Herons, Egrets, and Terns-during one winter. But the destruction of these birds is an unpleasant HERONS AND BITTERNS. subject. It is a blot on Florida's history. The subject will be found fully treated by W. E. D. Scott in The Auk, iv, 1887, p. 135. 197. Ardea candidissima Gmel. SNOWY HERON; SNOWY EGRET Ad. in breeding plumage.-Entire plumage pure white; about fifty recurved "aigrette" plumes grow from the interscapular region and reach to or just beyond the end of the tail; legs black, feet yellow, bill black, yellow at the base; lores orange-yellow. Ad. after the breeding season and Im. Without the interscapular plumes. L., 24.00; W., 9.75; Tar., 3.80; B., 3.20.