. Animate creation : popular edition of "Our living world" : a natural history. Zoology; Zoology. 550 THE BOAT-BILL HERON. The general color of the adiilt bird is a rich cinnamon-brown, the top of the head and nap- of the neck are black, and the head-jjlvinies, cheeks, a stripe over the eye, and whole of the lower surface are pure white, melting softly into cinnamon-brown on the sides of the neck. The bare skin round the eye is greenish-yellow, and the eyes orange. The bill is black, with a little yellow at the tip or on the lower mandible, and the legs and feet are rich yellow. As i
. Animate creation : popular edition of "Our living world" : a natural history. Zoology; Zoology. 550 THE BOAT-BILL HERON. The general color of the adiilt bird is a rich cinnamon-brown, the top of the head and nap- of the neck are black, and the head-jjlvinies, cheeks, a stripe over the eye, and whole of the lower surface are pure white, melting softly into cinnamon-brown on the sides of the neck. The bare skin round the eye is greenish-yellow, and the eyes orange. The bill is black, with a little yellow at the tip or on the lower mandible, and the legs and feet are rich yellow. As is frequently the case among the feathered tribes, the plumage of the young bird, instead of being adorned with broad uniform tints, is richly mottled and streaked, the upper surface being buff streaked with deep brown, and the under surface ochry white diversified with a dark stiipe down the centre of each feather. The primaries of the wings and quill-feathers of the tail are very dark chestnut at their base, deepening into black near their extremities, which are J"- '*^'-'y'c-_^^£^^^^^g — C'ancfoma coc/dearea. The very remarkable Boat-bill Heuo:n^ inhabits Southern America, and is tolerably plentiful in Guiana and Brazil. It derives its popular name from the singular form of its beak, which, although it really X^reserves the characteristics of the Heron's bill, is modified after a rather strange fashion, jirobably for the purpose of aiding it in its search aftei' food. (Tcnerally the beak is straight, slender, and sharp; but in this case, although it retains the same amount of substance, its shape is materially altered. Both mandibles ai-e much shortened, rather fiattened, and greatly hollowed, so as to assume the aspect of a pair of boats laid upon each othei' gunwale to gun- wale, the keel being well represented by the corresponding portion of the upper mandible. This bird is generally ftmnd near water, haunting the rivers, marshes, and swamps
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Keywords: ., bookauthorbr, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectzoology
