Snowy Heron or White by John James Audubon

An archival premium Quality art Print of the Snowy Heron or White Egret by John James Audubon for sale by Brandywine General Store. Mr. Audubon portrays this showy male adult with his spring plumage on a rice plantation farm in South Carolina. The bird in its bright white feathers stands on top of a marshy knoll overlooking the rice plantation with a man who looks like he is fishing. The man in the print is rare for Audubon, he does not show many people in the drawings of his birds. The snowy heron was plate or picture number 242 in the 1st Havell edition of the great ornithology book by Audubon, The Birds of America and was engraved, printed and colored by R. Havell in London in the year 1835. Ardea Candidissima - Mr. Audubon describes the snowy heron or white egret thus "This beautiful species is a constant resident in Florida and Louisiana, where thousands are seen during winter, and where many remain during the breeding season. It is perhaps of a still more delicate constitution than the Blue Heron, Ardea coerulea, as no individuals remain in the neighbourbood of Charleston when the winter happens to be rather colder than usual. In its migrations eastward it rarely proceeds farther than Long Island in the State of New York; few are seen in Massachusetts, and none farther to the east. It has not been observed in any part of the western country; nay, it rarely ascends the Mississippi as high as Memphis, or about two hundred miles from the mouth of the Ohio, and cannot be said to be at all abundant much farther up the great river than Natchez. In fact, the maritime districts furnish its favourite places of resort, and it rarely proceeds farther inland than fifty or sixty miles, even in the flat portions of the Carolinas, or in the Middle States, where it prefers the islands along the Atlantic coast. While I was at Charleston, in March 1831, few had arrived from the Floridas by the 18th of that month, but on the 25th thousands were seen in the marshes and rice-fields, all in full plumage. They reach the shores of New Jersey about the first week of May, when they may be seen on all parts of the coast between that district and the Gulf of Mexico. On the Mississippi, they seldom reach the low grounds about Natchez, where they also breed, earlier than the period at which they appear in the Middle States. The Snowy Heron, while in the Carolinas, in the month of April, resorts to the borders of the salt-water marshes, and feeds principally on shrimps. ...." Audubon Birds art print #242