182 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



pierce and secure its prey ; and this it does with so much precision, that, while 

 watching some at a distance with a glass, I rarely observed an instance of failure. 

 If fish is plentiful, on the shallows near the shore, when it has caught one, it im- 

 mediately swallows it, and runs briskly through the water, striking here and there, 

 and thus capturing several in succession. Two or three dashes of this sort, afford 

 sufficient nourishment for several hours, and when the bird has obtained enough 

 it retires to some quiet place, and remains there in an attitude of repose until its 

 hunger returns. 



Oscar E. Baynard (1912) found that 50 meals of young little blue 

 herons consisted of 1,900 grasshoppers, 37 small frogs, 149 cutworms, 

 8 lizards, and 142 small crawfish. And in the stomach of an adult, 

 he found 51 grasshoppers, 2 small frogs, 3 cutworms, 1 small lizard, 

 and the remains of 3 crawfish. These were quite substantial meals 

 and their contents show that these little herons are decidedly bene- 

 ficial. 



Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1916) made a study of the food of this 

 species in Porto Rico, from which it appeared that over 97 per cent 

 was animal and less than 3 per cent vegetable. The animal food con- 

 sisted of mole crickets, grasshoppers, locusts, and other insects, frogs, 

 crabs, shrimps, and lizards, Mr. Arthur H. Howell (1911) says of 

 the food of the little blue heron in Arkansas : 



The food of this heron consists chiefly of fish, frogs, lizards, crawfish, small 

 crabs, and insects. The rice growers of southern Texas consider it very useful 

 on account of its fondness for crawfish, which cause trouble in the rice fields by 

 their depredations upon the crop and by burrowing into the embankments sur- 

 rounding the fields. The stomachs of 4 specimens killed near Wilmot in June 

 contained crawfish and aquatic beetles. One bird had eaten 35 of the crustaceans 

 and 28 beetle larvae. 



Behavior. — The flight of the little blue heron is light, graceful, and 

 strong; it is performed in the usual heron attitude, with the head 

 drawn in upon the shoulders and the legs extended in the rear; the 

 wing strokes are quicker than in the larger herons. On the ground 

 or in the shallow water where it seeks its food, its movements are quick, 

 graceful, and elegant. On its feeding grounds and in its breeding 

 rookeries it is usually intimately associated with the Louisiana heron, 

 with which it seems to be on friendly terms, though I once saw a 

 Louisiana heron deliberately poke the eggs out of a little blue heron's 

 nest. These two small herons are daylight feeders; I doubt if they 

 ever feed at night. They may be seen at all hours of the day walking 

 daintily and actively about on the marshes or mud flats; but their 

 principal feeding hours are early in the morning and late in the after- 

 noon. They roost at night on the trees and bushes in their breed- 

 ing rookeries or in other suitable places such as motes or clumps of 

 trees on open marshes or on islands, where they feel secure; large 

 numbers congregate in such roosts. Early in the morning they fly out 

 in detached flocks and scatter over their feeding grounds ; returning 

 again at night, the flocks circle around the roost to reconnoiter and 



