148 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



or the little blue herons. It is necessary to see the bird actually sitting 

 on the nest to make identification sure; even then young little blue 

 herons in the white phase are liable to lead to confusion and it is 

 necessary to see the black legs and yellow feet or the graceful plumes 

 of the snowy egret. 



On both of my visits to the big rookery in Cuthbert Lake, in 1903 

 and 1908, there were a few pairs of snowy egrets among the hosts of 

 other small herons; they were probably breeding there, but no nests 

 were positively identified. 



During the next two years conditions began to improve, as a result 

 of protection and cessation of the plume trade. So that when I 

 visited the coast of Texas, in 1923, I found snowy egrets quite com- 

 mon in many of the rookeries on the coastal islands. The best col- 

 ony was found on Vingt-une Island in East Galveston Bay on May 

 5. We had seen many small white herons flying toward this island 

 and were not surprised to find on it a flourishing colony, which we 

 estimated to contain about 800 Louisiana herons, 400 snowy egrets, 

 and 150 black-crowned night herons. It was a small marshy island, 

 partly surrounded by shell beaches; on the boggy portions marsh 

 grass was growing and extensive growths of tall canes separated the 

 marshes from the drier portions; on the dry land were scattering 

 clumps of low huisache trees and prickly pear cactus, together with 

 thick tangles of vines, shrubbery, sunflowers, nettles, and other rank 

 herbage. The snowy egrets' nests were mainly in the open places 

 on the prickly pears or in the low huisache trees. They were mostly 

 grouped in clusters by themselves; some were very close to the ground 

 in the low cacti or underbrush and others were 5 or 6 feet up in the 

 huisaches. They were rather flimsy structures made of sticks and 

 pieces of dead canes and were lined with finer pieces of the same 

 materials and rootlets; it seemed to us that the egrets used coarser 

 material in their nests than the Louisiana herons. The nests all 

 contained eggs, four or five in each, well advanced in incubation. I set 

 up my blind in the center of this rookery and spent two or three 

 interesting honrs watching the home life of these beautiful birds. 

 The nuptial display was often shown when a bird returned to greet 

 its mate at the nest. I was greatly impressed with the tameness of 

 these lovely birds. 



Alexander Wilson (1832) gives us an idea of what conditions were 

 in his day, when snowy egrets nested abundantly as far north as 

 New Jersey; he writes: 



On the 19th of May, I visited an extensive Vireeding place of the snowy heron, 

 among the red cedars of Summers' Beach, on the coast of Cape May. The 

 situation was verj- sequestered, bounded on the land side by a fresh water marsh 

 or pond, and sheltered from the Atlantic by ranges of sand hills. The cedars, 

 though not high, were so closely crowded together as to render it difficult to 

 penetrate through among them. Some trees contained three, others four nests, 



