368 COMMON HERON. 



very large heronry at Ecury-le-grand, near Champigneul, in Marne ; 

 while scattered pairs are found in many districts. Migrants bearing 

 the labels of the Loo Hawking Club, Holland, have been shot from 

 time to time near Perpignan. To the Spanish Peninsula, the Azores, 

 Madeira, the Canaries, the Mediterranean basin, Africa as far as 

 Cape Colony, Ascension Island, the islands of the Indian Ocean, 

 and Australia, the Heron is either a winter-visitor or a wanderer; 

 but it breeds throughout Asia, from about 60° N. down to Ceylon. 



In January, if the season is very mild in England, but as a rule in 

 February, Herons resort to their breeding-places, and these are often 

 occupied for years in succession ; while, like the Rooks, in whose 

 vicinity they often build, they usually nest in company. According 

 to circumstances they avail themselves of high trees, precipitous 

 sea-clififs, crags covered with ivy and shrubs, bare hill-sides, the walls 

 of ruins, the level ground, low bushes, or reeds and bull-rushes. 

 The nest is fiat, rather broad, and formed of sticks, with a lining of 

 small twigs, roots and dry grass ; the 3-4 eggs are uniform bluish- 

 green : measurements 2*5 by 17 in. Incubation lasts 25-26 days 

 (W. Evans) ; and a second clutch of eggs is sometimes laid while the 

 first brood is still in the nest. Heronries are occupied from spring 

 to August,' and are occasionally visited in the winter, but except 

 in the breeding-season the bird is often solitary and shy. The 

 food consists of reptiles, molluscs, crustaceans, worms, insects, small 

 mammals — such as water-rats and field-mice, and still more largely 

 of eels, pike, flounders and other coarse fish, but trout and the 

 young of water-fowl are not despised. Young Herons are helpless 

 for some time after they are hatched ; when fledged they are good 

 eating, and were formerly esteemed for the table. The alarm-note 

 \?> Q.\o\idfrajik, frank, which is especially startling to other birds, 

 but at the nest it is a prolonged kronk or kraak. When flying, this 

 species is easily recognized by the slow flapping of its rounded wings. 



The adult male has the crest bluish-black; upper parts chiefly slate- 

 grey ; forehead, cheeks and neck white, the last being streaked with 

 dark bluish-grey and terminating in long white feathers ; under parts 

 greyish-white; bill yellow. Length 36 in.; wing 17 "25 in. The 

 female is smaller, and her colours are less bright, while the plumes 

 are shorter, as they are also in the young birds ; in the latter the under 

 parts are ash-colour, and there are no long feathers at the bottom of 

 the neck. Varieties are sometimes obtained. 



The members of this family have the breast and lower flanks 

 furnished with well-developed powdery tufts of decomposed feathers, 

 the use of which is not known. 



