The Green Herons feed all day long, but, as I think, rarely at night. Their food consists of frogs, fishes, snails, tadpoles, water lizards, crabs, and small quadrupeds, all of which they procure without much exertion, they being abundant in the places to which they usually resort. Their gait is light but firm. During the love-season they exhibit many curious gestures, erecting all the feathers of their neck, swelling their throat, and uttering a rough guttural note like _qua_, _qua_, several times repeated by the male as he struts before the female. This note is also usually emitted when they are started, but when fairly on wing they proceed in silence. The flesh of this species affords tolerable eating, and Green Herons are not unfrequently seen in the markets of our Southern cities, especially of New Orleans. The young attain their full beauty in the second spring, but continue to grow for at least another year. The changes which they exhibit, although by no means so remarkable as those of _Ardea rufescens_ and _A. cœrulea_, have proved sufficient to cause mistakes among authors who had nothing but skins on which to found their decisions. I have given figures of an adult in full plumage, and of an immature bird, to enable you to judge how carefully _Nature_ ought to be studied to enable you to keep free of mistakes. ARDEA VIRESCENS, _Linn._ Syst Nat. vol i. p. 238.—_Lath._ Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 684.—_Ch. Bonaparte_, Synopsis of Birds of United States, p. 307. GREEN HERON, ARDEA VIRESCENS, _Wils._ Amer. Ornith. vol. viii. p. 97, pl. 61, fig. 1.—_Nuttall_, Manual, vol. ii. p. 63. Adult Male. Plate CCCXXXIII. Fig. 1. Bill longer than the head, straight, rather slender, tapering to a very acute point, higher than broad at the base, compressed towards the end. Upper mandible with its dorsal line very slightly arched, the ridge broad and rather flattened at the base, narrowed towards the end, the sides sloping, erect towards the edges, which are sharp and direct, the tip acute. Nasal depression long, with a groove extending to near the point; nostrils basal, linear, longitudinal. Lower mandible with the angle very long and narrow, the dorsal line sloping upwards, the sides sloping outwards and nearly flat, the edges sharp, the tip acuminate. Head oblong, much compressed. Neck long. Body very slender, much compressed. Feet rather long, moderately stout; tibia bare for about an inch; tarsi of moderate length, covered with hexagonal scales of which some of the anterior are much larger and scutelliform. Toes rather long and slender, with numerous scutella above; hind toe stout, second and fourth nearly equal, third much longer; claws rather long, slender, arched, compressed, acute, that of middle toe expanded and serrated on the inner edge.