1902] Saunders — Eggs of the Great Blue Heron. 283 



waters would have eg-g-s ot clear blue. This conclusion puts one 

 in a position to theorize abou*^ the inhabitants of an individual 

 heronry, and lends much interest to the following- extracts from 

 Mr. Farley's letter of Feb. ist, 1891, in which he says : 



" On the 24th May, 1889, Ben and I went to the heronry 

 nine miles northwest from here, but did not get there till late in 

 the day, about six o'clock. 1 did not want to go up as I had 

 walked the country since four o'clock that morning and was tired, 

 but Ben went up one tree with six nests in it, and took two sets, 

 one of 4 spotted, and one of 5 plain ones. Then when he came 

 down I went up another with five nests in it. It was nearly too 

 late, about seven o'clock, when I got up, and I did not want to 

 be caught in the top of a black ash with dead branches after dark, 

 so I did not get any eggs but saw into several nests and could see 

 one set of 5 spotted ones and two plain sets. I went down and 

 we tried Ben's to see if they were fresh, but found that one ot the 

 set of 5 was broken, and it was about 18 days set on out of the 

 21 days; and the bird was all formed. We got the eight eggs 

 home all right and by persistent work for two weeks they were 

 fit for the cabinet, and he now has them in his collection in British 

 Columbia. 



" The heronry is in a big forest of black ash and soft maple 

 trees, and was nearly flooded beneath. There were about 100 

 nests in the place. Some of the trees had as many as eight nests 

 in them, but the majority only had four or five, and some only 

 one. We concluded that we were about ten days too late, and in 

 1890 we would visit it. Accordingly, on the 12th May, 1890, we 

 left home at 3.30 a.m. and got there shortly after daybreak. We 

 each chose our tree as we both had a pair of irons. I took one 

 with five nests and Ben one with seven. As soon as I got up I 

 yelled out to him that I had a set of five spotted ones, but they 

 were pipped so I left them and went on up to the other nests. 

 From that tree I took two sets of spotted eggs and one of plain 

 ones. No. i spotted contained four eggs and No. 2 contained 

 three eggs. No. 2 is the set I send you. During the day I took 

 three sets of spotted, one of five, one of four and one of three. I 

 could only make the set of three fit for my cabinet, although I 

 have the rest laid aside. During the day Ben took three nests of 



