188 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



still adheres to the juvenal feathers and forms a halo around their 

 heads. In climbing they make use of their feet, wings and bill, or, 

 rather of the neck, hooking their bills and chins over the branches 

 and pulling themselves up. The bastard wing is extended during 

 the climbing process, suggesting an ancestral, reptilian use, but 

 whatever power it may have had in the past, this was long since 

 lost. I have never seen any attempt to use the bastard wing in 

 grasping. If the ornithologist climbs the tree in order to observe 

 the half-grown young in the nest, these almost always leave in 

 haste and scatter to the outermost tips of the branches. 



Another ancestral trait, which is suggested in the adult by the 

 persistence of a distinct web between the middle and outer toes, is 

 an ability on the part of the young to swim, an inheritance which 

 must be of distinct value in many cases where the young fall from 

 the nesting tree or bush into the water below. I once placed a vig- 

 orous half-grown young green heron in the water below its nest and 

 was delighted to see it sit erect like a little swan and paddle grace- 

 fully off, using its feet alternately. It seemed perfectly at its ease, 

 dabbed at the water occasionally with its bill, swam a creek 20 yards 

 broad, and threaded its way among the grass stalks until it dis- 

 appeared from sight. The grace and ease with which it swam con- 

 trasted forcibly with its movements on land. The adult also is able 

 to swim. 



When the young are approached too closely, they regurgitate the con- 

 tents of their crops to the discomfort of the seeker after knowledge, 

 although this action gives the latter an opportunity to learn the char- 

 actor of their food. Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock (1906), who has made 

 some interesting and valuable studies of several famihes of these birds 

 in southern Wisconsin says: 



As soon as the little ones were fairly out of the shells and before the down was 

 dry on their heads we had taken several pictures of them. One of these revealed 

 a remarkable heron trait, for the brand new baby, who had never been fed, and 

 who had scarcely opened his eyes on this queer world, yet attempted to protest 

 against our meddling by the characteristic heron method of defense. In his case 

 the action was merely a nervous " gagging " and would seem to indicate that this 

 act is involuntary rather than intentional on the part of all herons. * ♦ * 

 When first hatched the herons stretched up to a height of 3,1^ inches, and when 

 7 days old, 11 inches. 



She found that they "gained one-half ounce in weight every day 

 for 6 days, weighing three-fourths of an ounce at the beginning and 

 3% of an ounce on the seventh da3^" These young were fed only in 

 the early morning and in the late afternoon, and the periods of great- 

 est activity were from 4 to 6 in the morning, and from 5 to 7 in the 

 evening. One record taken when the young were a week old, showed 

 that they were fed 7 times in the morning and 7 times in the after- 

 noon. The food was given by regurgitation but was not predigested. 



