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This depiction of the blue heron is taken from The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (1731-1747) by famed naturalist Mark Catesby. He was one of several 18th-century explorers who ventured to remote areas of the world to document regional flora and fauna. A copy of the 1771 edition of the two-volume work is in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation collection.

Catesby found these birds in limited numbers and wrote, "whence they come, and where they breed, is to me unknown."