54 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Feb, 



yearly the same locality, but often the same pair return to the 

 same nest ; and as their numbers increase, the new-comers 

 build nests for themselves. The heronry at Nun's Island may 

 have been commenced by only two or three pairs of birds; but 

 as old and young returned year after year, the number of nests 

 has thereby greatly increased : during the summer of 1864 I 

 estimated the number of breeding birds at from eighty to one 

 hundred pairs. Having visited it for several successive years, I 

 have seen the birds in every stage of plumage. So like are 

 the male and the female that the most practised eye cannot tell 

 the one from the other. Like the male, the female has the 

 long, white occipital plumes on the hind head. These are in 

 most cases three in number, but specimens are often found with 

 four perfect plumes. Many mistakes have been made by col- 

 lectors respecting the male, female, and young, of this species ; 

 the one being often taken for the other. The young of the first 

 year may easily be known by the following general description: — 

 " The upper parts light brown, streaked with reddish white, the 

 lower parts being dull ashy-white, variegated with grayish, 

 and dusky." — Public and private collections would be doubly 

 valuable, in a scientific point of view, were they to have a young 

 bird of each species placed beside the adult male and female. Great 

 difficulty has been experienced in determining certain species of 

 eagles, hawks, and falcons, owing to the diversity in plumage 

 of the different sexes, and at various stages of growth. — But 

 to return to our subject. The trees in the heronry above alluded 

 to are not scattered far apart, but they may be enclosed by a circle 

 of about one hundred and fifty or two hundred yards in diameter. 

 The nests are built often two and three on the same tree ; and 

 in many cases side by side with those of the American crow. 

 Their nests are not unlike one another, that of the crow being 

 however smaller. The heron's nest is composed of sticks thrown 

 together very loosely and carelessly ; often indeed with so slight 

 a hollow, as to endanger the sa. r e y of the eggs and young. 

 Many eggs are thus destroyed : after a high wind, the ground 

 is often strewed with the broken shells. The eggs, so far as 

 I have observed, are always four in number, and of a light 

 blue-color, — agreeing in these respects with those of the night- 

 heron of Europe. During the day, the male birds roost on lofty 

 trees near the water's edge, uttering from time to time their harsh 

 croak, — the females meanwhile keeping to their nests. When- 



