_Egretta ruficollis._—+Mihi.+
[101] Length 25¹⁄₂ inches, expanse 36¹⁄₂, flexure 9³⁄₄, neck 10,
tail 2¹⁄₂, rictus 4¹⁄₂, tarsus 4, middle toe 3¹⁄₄.
Irides cream-white; lores deep fulvous, with an oblong dusky spot
near the edge of upper mandible; beak, black above, clay-colour
beneath; feet dull pea-green. Crown, cheeks, and neck pale
brick-red, mingled with dark grey feathers. Back ashy-grey, with
pale reddish tips; scapulars and quills blue-grey; coverts grey
with red tips, almost wholly red towards the edge of the wing.
Rump and tail-coverts white. Tail dark grey. Chin, throat, and
whole under parts yellowish-white, but down the front of neck an
irregular series of rufous feathers, forming dashes on the white;
and a few blackish feathers on the breast.
I first met with this undescribed species in a little excursion up the
beautiful Burnt Savanna River, on the 25th of November. The immense
morass through which it flows, looking like a sea of rushes, relieved
here and there by clumps of the tall and slender palmetto, affords
shelter and sustenance to immense numbers of aquatic birds, in common
with Black River, of which this is a main branch. Of this species of
Gaulin, which is not remarkable for beauty, the only specimen, besides,
that I met with, was shot by Sam, at Bluefields Creek, on the 7th of
May. Both individuals had been feeding on a small species of _Gobius_,
called mud-fish.
Though birds which feed exclusively on animal matters are ordinarily
marked by the shortness of the intestinal canal, the tribe before us
forms a remarkable exception to this rule; while the body of this bird
was less than four inches in length, the intestine measured seventy-two
inches. The neck is more than usually long in this species.
It is doubtless a permanent resident in the Island.