QUA BIRD, OR AMERICAN NIGHT HERON. 55 



sylvania early in the month of April, and soon take posses- 

 sion of their ancient nurseries, which are usually, (in the 

 middle and southern states,) the most solitary and deeply 

 shaded part of a cedar swamp, or some inundated and almost 

 inaccessible grove of swamp oaks. In these places, or some 

 contiguous part of the forest, near a pond or stream, the 

 timorous and watchful flock pass away the day, until the 

 commencement of twilight, when the calls of hunger, and 

 the coolness of evening arouse the dosinor throno- into life 

 and activity. At this time, high in the air, the parent birds 

 are seen sallying forth towards the neighboring marshes and 

 strand of the sea, in quest of food, for themselves and their 

 young ; as they thus proceed in a marshalled rank, at intervals 

 they utter a sort of recognition call, like the guttural sound 

 of the syllable ^hwdh, uttered in so hollow and sepulchral a 

 tone, as almost to resemble the retchings of a vomiting 

 person. These venerable eyries of the Kwah Birds, have 

 been occupied from the remotest period of time, by about 

 eighty to a hundred pairs. When their ancient trees were 

 levelled by the axe, they have been known to remove merely 

 to some other quarter of the same swamp, and it is only 

 when they have been long teased and plundered that they 

 are ever known to abandon their ancient stations. Their 

 greatest natural enemy is the Crow, and according to the 

 relation of Wilson, one of these heronries, near Thompson's 

 Point, on the banks of the Delaware, was at length entirely 

 abandoned, through the persecution of these sable enemies. 

 Several breedino- haunts of the Kwah Birds occur amonop the 

 red cedar groves, on the sea beach of Cape May ; in these 

 places they also admit the association of the Little Egret, 

 the Green Bittern, and the Blue Heron. In a very secluded 

 and marshy island, in Fresh Pond, near Boston, there like- 

 wise exists one of these ancient heronries ; and though the 

 birds have been frequently robbed of their eggs, in great 



