A specimen, shot from a tree, fell into rather deep water; and though one foot was disabled, it struck out vigorously with the other, and swam in an upright posture, with the head drawn back (not struggling,) several yards, before it was seized.
It is not common enough for me to determine whether it is migratory or not; I have obtained specimens on the 16th of September and on the 9th of April, and through the intervening winter.
RED-NECKED GAULIN.[101]
Egretta ruficollis.—Mihi.
[101] Length 25½ inches, expanse 36½, flexure 9¾, neck 10, tail 2½, rictus 4½, tarsus 4, middle toe 3¼.
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.