90 NOTES ON THE 



should be added a long-continued practice of firing pistols at 

 them from the steamers* decks to see the females rise in clouds 

 from their nests, and the robbing them of their eggs by men 

 and boys by the employment of telegraph pole climbing irons 

 to reach them, their numbers became so sensibly reduced as to 

 call in special legislation, some five or six years since, or all 

 would have been destroyed or driven entirely away. I have 

 taken all measures within my reach to ascertain the area daily 

 visited by the "cranes" and cormorants brooding and roosting 

 in this group, and while not absolutely certain of the exact 

 dimensions, I can safely say it covers a circle the diameter of 

 which is not less than eighty miles. In England it is said that 

 all roads lead to London, so when I see or hear of individuals of 

 these species flying regularly /?'om the direction of Minnetonka 

 in the morning, until nearly nine o'clock, and after four in the 

 afternoon till dark, towards it, uniformly, I conclude that they 

 belong there. The nearest heronry to this of which I have 

 any reliable knowledge is about 190 miles from here. They 

 rear but one brood in a season here now, if ever they did before. 

 Their food is frogs, fish, snakes, mice, water beetles and slugs. 

 From the 15th to the 20th of October they go away to the south 

 in small flocks. 



There is another heronrj'^ somewhere in the southeastern 

 part of the State, which I have not yet succeeded in locating, 

 but I think it is somewhere perhaps in Dodge, Olmsted or 

 Freeborn county. A large one has long been located in 

 Douglas or Grant county, I am credibly informed by duck- 

 hunters. In general their distribution is co-exlensive with the 

 State, yet there are considerable sections where they do not 

 go on account of the deficiency of appropriate food. 



Mr. Washburn found them common throughout his explora- 

 tions at Mille Lacs and in the different sections of the Red 

 River valley. 



Mr. Lewis found it in nearly every place he visited in the 

 north and western parts of the commonwealth. 



If intelligently cooked, the flesh of the entire Heron family 

 is excellent eating, including the unprepossessing and most 

 unpopular Bittern, as I can bear positive testimony, for by the 

 courtesy of Mr. Wm. Tiffany I breakfasted with him upon it 

 once many years ago. If there is anything which forever 

 settles the question of man's evolution from animals lower than 

 the monkeys, it is the attainment of prejudices respecting his 

 food. His employment of the imagination in the domains of 



