178 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



from a distance. Sometimes these lakes contain islands covered with button- 

 wood or willow bushes, and these frequently are chosen as nesting sites for vari- 

 ous herons of the neighborhood. Other favorite breeding places of the little blue 

 heron are the small ponds in dense hammock lands that surround many of the 

 lakes. Here, in the heavy semitropical forests, one may find quiet little ponds 

 thickly grown with bushes, and such places the herons love. 



Nesting. — In Florida, in 1902, we found little blue herons breeding 

 in large numbers on the willow islands of the upper St. Johns, in 

 rookeries with the Louisiana herons, which were much more numer- 

 ous. So far as we could judge, from what few nests we were able 

 to identif}^ and from watching the birds rise from their nests as we 

 approached the rookeries, the little blue herons always nested in the 

 smaller willows on the outer edges of the islands. The nests were placed 

 low down, r^ :>stly from 2 to 4 feet from the ground, in small trees or 

 bashes or on the lower branches. In Monroe County in 1903 we 

 found them breeding in the big inland rookeries with other speices; 

 here also their nests were confined to the outskirts of the rookeries, 

 where they were bunched together in compact groups. We did not 

 find them breeding on any of the Keys; I have never found them 

 breeding any where near salt water. We found none breeding in any 

 of the coastal rookeries in Texas, in 1923 ; but we found them common 

 and breeding in the big inland rookeries of Victoria County. 



C. J. Pennock has sent me some interesting notes on breeding col- 

 onies of little blue herons in the ty-ty pond region of Wakulla County, 

 Florida. Here several hundred acres "low, level moor" extend from 

 the banks of the St. Marks River to the Gidf , where the " many ty-ty 

 ponds, with their rank border growth, lie dotted around like so many 

 slands in a sea of grass." The ponds vary in size from 15 to20 yards in 

 diameter to several times that size, in which there is sometimes 3 or 

 4 feet of water and sometimes only dry mud, according to the season. 

 The ty-ty bushes, for which the ponds are named, grow from 8 or 10 

 to 20 or more feet high and their close-growing stems prove a formi- 

 dable barrier. In one of these ponds Mr. Pennock found a colony of 

 100 or more pairs of little blue herons established, with nests in the 

 bushes from 5 to 8 feet above the water. Eight nests were found in 

 a single clump of ty-ty only 15 feet in diameter. In another small 

 pond 18 to 20 pairs were nesting in isolated clump of bushes, less than 

 20 feet in diameter, that grew almost in the center of the pond. 



Near Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, on May 19 and 20, 1915, 

 while I was visiting Arthur T. Wayne, he showed me a small colony 

 of 8 or 10 pairs of little blue herons. After wandering for sometime 

 through a grand old forest of tall pine, sweet gum, black gum, live 

 oak, and water oak, with occasional thickets of myrtle and bay, over- 

 grown with tangles of vines, we came to a wet section in the forest, 

 where the large live oaks and water oaks were standing in shallow 

 water; and beyond, where the water was from knee deep to waist 



