BLUE HERON NCU401This 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. Find out more about The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation here.
Catesby found these birds in limited numbers and wrote, "whence they come, and where they breed, is to me unknown."