. Our birds in their haunts : a popular treatise on the birds of eastern North America . is thrown forwardand the neck extended, while the head darts into the water;the ill-fated fish which he brings up, impaled on his long,pointed mandibles, disappears down his capacious gulletwith a few jerks of the head. How graceful is every atti-tude and motion of this gigantic bird. And yet, when slain,how ungainly he appears. Some 4 feet and several inches fromthe tip of the bill to the end of the tail, and a foot longerfrom the tip of the bill to the ends of the toes, the generalcolor is a delicate blu
. Our birds in their haunts : a popular treatise on the birds of eastern North America . is thrown forwardand the neck extended, while the head darts into the water;the ill-fated fish which he brings up, impaled on his long,pointed mandibles, disappears down his capacious gulletwith a few jerks of the head. How graceful is every atti-tude and motion of this gigantic bird. And yet, when slain,how ungainly he appears. Some 4 feet and several inches fromthe tip of the bill to the end of the tail, and a foot longerfrom the tip of the bill to the ends of the toes, the generalcolor is a delicate bluish-ash, the neck slightly tinged withbrown, and having a spotted or streaked throat-line adownthe front; the long, slender, almost thread-like, scapularsand lower feathers of the neck, white; plumes of the head,of which two, in the mature state, are long and filiform,black; crown and throat, white; thighs and wing-shoulders,brown; under parts, black, streaked with white; eyes andbill, yellow. Male and female are alike, except thatthe latter is smaller. The young are similar, lacking. THE GREAT BLUE HERON. 452 THE GREA T BL UE HERON: the long ornamental feathers, and having the neckspotted. As this bird rises out of the water, it seems immense, andrequires many strong beats of its wings before obtainingan easy flight. Once well on the wing, it moves majestically,with a firm and regular stroke of the great wings, the neckfolded into a big lump, and the long legs extended behindlike an immense tail. Occupying, in summer, entire tem-perate North America, it ornaments the landscape of NovaScotia and New Brunswick about as commonly as that ofthe Middle States, and occasionally puts in an appearanceeven as far north as Hudsons Bay; thus differing from theHerons in general, which incline to the tropics and warm,temperate regions. The food of herodias is fish, for the most part, but mayconsist of frogs, mice and insects. Commonly breeding incommunities, sometimes singly, however, the n
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1892
