Plate 78
Havell CCCXXXIII
Green Heron
(Butorides virescens)
This water-color, pencil, and pastel composition is one of the works Audubon exhibited at Edinburgh in 1826; he probably painted it in Louisiana in 1821 or 1822. A young heron is shown at left, reaching for a luna moth; the adult, at right, was cut out and pasted beneath the leaves of a plant which, because of its imprecise rendering, cannot be positively identified.
Source: The Original Water-Color Paintings by John James Audubon. Copyright 1966 by American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc.
Learn more about this print on the National Audubon Society's website.