BLUE HERON. 59 



In the course of the spring, however, they migrate, occa- 

 sionally to the confines of New England, restrictincr their 

 visits, like many other of the tender species, to the confines 

 of the ocean, and its adjoining marshes, where their proper 

 food, of reptiles, worms, and insect larvae abound. They 

 also often visit the fresh water bogs, in the vicinity of their 

 eyries ; and move about actively, sometimes making a run 

 at their prey. Like the Snowy Heron, with which it some- 

 times associates, it is also, when the occasion requires, very 

 silent, intent and watchful. These nocturnal and indolent 

 birds, appear tacitly to associate and breed often in the 

 same swamps, leading towards each other, no doubt, a very 

 harmless and independent life. Patient and timorous, though 

 voracious in their appetites, their defence consists in seclu- 

 sion, and with an appropriate instinct, they seek out the 

 wildest and most insulated retreats in nature. The undrain- 

 able morass grown up with a gigantic and gloomy forest, im- 

 perviously filled with tangled shrubs and rank herbage, 

 abounding with disgusting reptiles, sheltering wild beasts, 

 and denying a foot hold to the hunter, are among the chosen 

 resorts of the sagacious Herons, whose uncouth manners, 

 raucous voice, rank flesh, and gluttonous appetite, allow 

 them to pass quietly through the world, as objects at once 

 contemptible and useless ; yet the part which they perform 

 in the scale of existence, in the destruction they make 

 amongst reptiles and insects, affords no inconsiderable 

 benefit to man. 



A few of the Blue Herons, for common safety, breed 

 among the Night Herons, the Snowy species, and the Green 

 Bittern, among the cedars, (or Virginian Junipers,) on the 

 sea beach of Cape May. Their nests, placed in the tops 

 of the trees, were composed of small twigs, and contained 

 mostly 5 eggs of a light blue color, but of a somewhat deeper 

 tint than those of the Night Heron. 



