140 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES' NATIONAL MUSEUM 



present, are fewer in number and much shorter than in spring. The 

 plumage is, of course, all pure white at all ages and seasons. 



Food. — Egrets obtain their food in the marshes and rice fields and 

 around the marshy shores of lakes and ponds where their tall, grace- 

 ful figures tower above the low vegetation or are reflected in the 

 smooth waters as beautiful silhouettes in white. Their movements 

 are stately and the strokes of their rapierlike bills are quick and sure. 

 Their food consists only partially of small fishes and it includes frogs, 

 Uzards, small snakes, mice, moles, fiddlers, snails, grasshoppers, and 

 other insects, as well as some vegetable matter. Oscar E. Baynard 

 (1912) says: 



Food of 50 young egrets that was disgorged by them at the nests immediately 

 after being fed, running over a period of four weeks. The total of the 50 meals 

 follows: 297 small frogs, 49 small snakes, mostly the water moccasin, 61 young 

 fish, suckers, not edible, 176 crayfish. 



Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1916) says of a bird taken in Porto Rico: 



The single stomach available for examination contained 4 per cent of vegetable 

 rubbish taken as extraneous matter with the animal food. Remains of one mole 

 cricket {Scapteriscus didactylus) and seven entire grasshoppers, with fragments of 

 many more, were found, as well as a moth and three large dragon flies. A small 

 goby and seven entire frogs (Leptodactylus albilabris) with fragments of others, 

 made up 69 per cent of the contents. Orthoptera amouted to 15 per cent, a sur- 

 prising fact and one that should be given due weight in considering the status 

 of this species. 



Behavior. — The pose of the American egret in flight is not unhke 

 that of the other herons; when well under way it carries its neck 

 folded backward, with its head between its shoulders, and its long 

 legs extended behind it as a rudder. But it seems to me that it is 

 easily recognized at even a great distance by its more slender form and 

 by its proportionately longer and broader wings; it is markedly differ- 

 ent in these respects from the smaller white herons, and it is a much 

 Ughter bird with a more buoyant flight than the heavier great white 

 heron. 



It is much at home in the tree tops where it is very light, graceful 

 and agile. A striking instance of its agility is related by C. J. May- 

 nard (1896) who had made a pet of a young egret; he writes: 



This bird was accustomed to sit on the prow of a canoe, which was towed astern 

 of the yacht, and when hungry, the heron would walk deliberately along the rope, 

 by which the smaller vessel was fastened to the larger, and which was some 10 

 feet long, and thus come on board. One day when it was making this trip, a 

 sudden flaw struck the sail, causing the rope to sway, and the bird was thrown 

 into the water. We were moving at the rate of 10 or 12 miles an hour, and the 

 bow of the little boat swept past the heron in an instant, but it appeared to know 

 just what to do, for, without making any usless struggles, it merely reached out 

 and caught the edge of the rapidly passing stern with its bill, gave a flap or two, 

 and in a moment regained its perch on the prow. 



