BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 89 



ARDEA HERODIAS L. (194/) 

 GREAT BLUE HERON. 



Crane island is situated in the upper portion of upper "Lake 

 Minne tonka, and has received its name from the circumstance 

 of its being the breeding and roosting place of the ' ' Blue 

 Cranes," as this species is popularly called. How long it has 

 been thus occupied is not even traditional, for it was a heronry 

 earlier than the Indian traditions began. About the 10th to 

 15th of April, and occasionally a little earlier, these birds begin 

 to arrive in small parties, at once seeking their old roosting 

 place. A steady increase in their numbers continues for about 

 a week, when the whole clan seems to have reached the 

 heronry, and early in the mornings they may be seen flying far 

 away in all directions till all have departed. An hour before 

 the sun sets, they begin to return, but it will be some time 

 after dark before the last have arrived. They gather into 

 clusters, or loose parties in sections to which they resort, after 

 having satisfied their hunger, and enter into matrimonial nego 

 tiations in which rivalries and jealousies lead to some severe 

 contests between the males. By the first week in May all of 

 these matters are settled, and the nesting begins from the 5th 

 to the 10th of May. The structures consist of sticks, twigs, 

 coarse and medium weeds of different kinds, very roughly and 

 loosely disposed, with barely depression enough to retain the 

 eggs, three to four in number, light bluish green in color, all 

 of which is placed in the forks of a tree at about sixty feet ele- 

 evation. The island on which the tree stands, at some day in 

 the remote past, was evidently densely covered with lofty elms, 

 sugar maples, oaks and basswoods, but the excrement accumu- 

 lating from year to year, and age to age. . has destroyed them 

 until the number left standing has become few and considerably 

 scattered. Since that lake has become a great summer resort, 

 and is constantly plied with some twenty or thirty steamers of 

 various sizes (with whistles loud enough to be heard quite dis- 

 tinctly fifteen miles away), three or foar times as many full 

 sailed yachts, to which may be added two or three hundred 

 row-boats, constantly flitting back and forth at all hours of the 

 day and far into the nights, it is a standing surprise that these 

 birds (and their copartners, the cormorants, whom I had like 

 to have forgotten to mention in this connection), still continue 

 to return year after year to the same familiar spot. However, 

 it must be confessed that from these disturbing causes, to which 



