File:Birds and nature in natural colors - being a scientific and popular treatise on four hundred birds of the United States and Canada (1913) (14775143583).jpg

Identifier: birdsnatureinnat02chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature in natural colors : being a scientific and popular treatise on four hundred birds of the United States and Canada
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds -- North America
Publisher: Chicago : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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of a horn color; iris of theeye, yellow; center of crown and throat, white; sides of crown black, this colormeeting on the back of the head where the feathers are lengthened and form anoccipital crest; neck, pale greenish-brown; feathers of the lower foreneck narrowand much lengthened, sometimes with black streaks; back, wing coverts and tailslaty gray; bend of wing, chestnut rufous; tail, very short and even; black patchand white feathers on the side of the breast; breast and belly streaked with blackand white; tibia long, upper half feathered and of rufous color, lower half bareand yellowish; tarsus about eight inches long and black; feet, black; from tip offront toe to tip of hind toe, eight inches; hind toe is on a level with the others;claws moderate, curved and acute with the inner edge of the middle one pecti-nated. Formerly it was believed that the middle toe was pectinated for the purposeof enabling the bird to seize fish with its feet, but it is now understood that this 302
Text Appearing After Image:
(jkKAT BLUE HERON.x Life-size. comb-like arrangement is for the purpose of removing from the bill the stickydown which adheres to it after cleaning its plumage; the claw is passed fromthe tip of the bill to the base on each side, and any feathers, slime or fish, oradhering dirt is thus removed. The sexes are alike in appearance, except thatthe male is the largest. The range of this heron extends from the Columbia Valley and Venezuelanorth to Hudsons Bay and Sitka. They are practically gregarious and arealtricial. Generally they nest in the tops of trees in swamps or other places nearthe water and in communities known as heronries. Audubon says that oncethey have taken possession of a breeding place suited to their taste, they willreturn to it annually, and repair the old nests until circumstances force them toabandon it. The nests are large and irregularly formed of sticks and lined withsmaller twigs. Their structure sometimes is so slight that they tumble to piecesbefore the young ar

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