GREAT HERON. 43 



seeking out open springs, muddy marshes, subjected to the 

 overflow of tides, or the sheltered recesses of the cedar and 

 Cyprus swamps contiguous to the sea coast. As a rare or 

 accidental visitor, it has been found even as far north as 

 Hudson's Bay, and commonly passes the breeding season in 

 small numbers along the coasts of all the New England 

 States, and the adjoining parts of British America. Mr. 

 Say also observed this species at Pembino, in the 49th paral- 

 lel. Ancient natural heronries of this species occur in the 

 deep maritime swamps of North and South Carolina : sim- 

 ilar associations for breeding exist also in the lower parts of 

 New Jersey. Their favorite and long frequented resorts 

 are usually dark and enswamped solitudes, or boggy lakes, 

 grown up with tall cedars, and entangled with an under- 

 growth of bushes and Kalmia laurels. These recesses defy 

 the reclaiming hand of cultivation, and present the same 

 gloomy and haggard landscape they did to the aborigines 

 of the forest, who, if they existed, might still pursue through 

 the tangled mazes of these dismal swamps, the retreating 

 bear, and timorous deer. From the bosom of these choked 

 lakes, and arising out of the dark and pitchy bog, may be 

 seen large clumps of the tall Cypress ( Cupressus disticha,) 

 like the innumerable connecting columns of the shady 

 mangrove, for sixty or more feet rising without a branch, 

 and their spreading tops, blending together, form a canopy so 

 dense as almost to exclude the licrht from beneath their 

 branches. In the tops of the tallest of these trees, the 

 wary Herons, associated to the number of ten or fifteen 

 pair, construct their nests, each one in the top of a single 

 tree ; these are large, formed of coarse sticks, and merely 

 lined with smaller twigs. The eggs, generally 4, are 

 somewhat larger than those of the hen, of a light greenish 

 blue, and destitute of spots. The young are seen abroad 

 about the middle of May, become extremely fat and full 



