NORTH AMERICAN MARSH SffiDS 209 



a'roni the neighboring tree tops, who take up the call and repeat it until a vir- 

 tual cloud of birds is flying about in great confusion. After you have entered 

 ■the rookery, the notes of the adults are drowned out by the incessant clatter of 

 the young birds which during July and August are represented by birds of all 

 ages. The call of the downy young resembles a faint " Tet! tel! tet!" or " Yip- 

 yip-yip" the half-grown nestlings utter a sound more like " Yak! yak! yak!" and 

 the older young utter a harsher, coarser sound resembling roughly the words 

 "Chuck, chxick-a-chuck, chuck, chuck." These various calls of the young all min- 

 gled together sound like the deafening clatter and hum of an infinite number of 

 machines in a great factory, and, indeed, it is a heron factory. Daring the course 

 uf the day the intensity of the calls of the young varies directly as the keenness 

 of their appetites. These calls couM be heard at all hours of the day or night, 

 but just before the bulk of the adult birds came in from the feeding grounds, a 

 time which varied with the tide, the number of young calling and the volume of 

 sound was at a maximum. At such times the rookery resounded with a deaf- 

 ening monotonous clatter. When the young were hungry, they were also irri- 

 table, and the least disturbance by a neighbor would cause them to render a de- 

 fensive thrust accompanied by a ghastly, sharply accented " Sque-e-e-e-e-e-ak." 

 In uttering this squeal the beak is thrown wide open, during the "Sque-c-e-e-e-e " 

 and then suddenly snapped together at the termination of the much accented 

 "ak." Doubtless it is these weird sounds which have led some observers to 

 compare the noises of a colony of night herons to the war whoops of a band of 

 Indians. 



A similar note is uttered by adults when they are defending their nests against 

 intruders. When the parent bird arrives with food she often utters a series of 

 low guttural tones, some of which resemble very much the sounds made by an 

 old hen when she is brooding her chicks. At other times, she would give a series 

 of loud calls resembling " Oc-oc-goc-goc-goc-oc, oc-oc-oc" or " Woc-a-woc, ivoc, xvoc, 

 Wock-a-ivoc, woe," which, judging from the actions of the young, conveyed a 

 definite unmistakable meaning. 



Enemies. — Audubon (1840) says that: 



Crows, hawks, and vultures torment the birds by day, while raccoons and 

 other animals destroy them by night. The young are quite as good for eating 

 as those of the common pigeon, being tender, juicy, and fat, with very little of 

 the fishy taste of many birds which, like them, feed on fishes and reptiles. In 

 the neighborhood of New Orleans, and along the Mississippi as far up as Natchez, 

 the shooting of this species is a favorite occupation with the planters, who 

 represent it as equaling any other bird in the delicacy of its flesh. 



Gracklcs often nest in or near the rookeries and ma}^ do some 

 damage to the eggs. Ravens are destructive in the Maine rookeries. 

 Foxes are very common on Sandy Neck and probably pick up many 

 young birds that have fallen from the nests ; Doctor Gross saw one 

 in the rookery one night. Undoubtedly nest-robbing crows are the 

 worst enemies of all herons. 



FaZZ.— Young night herons, like the young of several other lierons, 

 are somewhat inclined to wander northward after the close of the 

 breeding season. By September first, or soon after that, the Sandy 

 Neck rookery is practically deserted, the herons having scattered in 

 all directions, either to find new feeding grounds or to satisfy the 

 lust for wandering, and the same seems to be true of other rookeries. 



