NORTH AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 215 



interior of swampy woods, iu lower Louisiana, I have found the nests placed on 

 the tops of the loftiest cypresses, and on low bushes, but seldom so close together 

 as those of many other herons. On the Florida Keys, where I have examined 

 more of these tenements than in any other part, I found them either on the tops 

 of mangroves, which there seldom attain a greater height than 25 feet, or on 

 their lowest branches, and not more than 2 or 3 feet from the water. In the 

 Carolinas, they usually resort to swamps, nestling on the bushes along their mar- 

 gins. The nest is similar to that of other herons, being formed of dry sticks 

 loosely put together, and a few weeds, with at times a scanty lining of fibrous roots. 



C. J. Maynard (1896) says that, in the Bahamas, "the nests are 

 generally placed low, in some instances not over a foot from the 

 ground. They are usually huge stick-built structures, well hollowed, 

 and remind one strongly of the nests of hawks, and they are often 

 lined with leaves." Arthur T. Wayne (1906) found a nest that was 

 built in a short-leaf pine, 40 feet from the ground, on the high land and 

 half a mile from water, in South Carolina. John G. Wells (1886) 

 says that, in the Lesser Antilles, "they sometimes build in the man- 

 groves, but generally resort to the rocky islets during the nesting 

 period, in April and May. There they build in the prickly-pear 

 bushes a large platform of dry sticks." 



Eggs. — The yellow-crowned night heron usually lays three or fom* 

 eggs, rarely five. Those that I have seen are ovate in shape and the 

 shell is smooth but not glossy. The color is pale bluish green, vary- 

 ing from "pale glaucous green" to "pale olivine." The measure- 

 ments of 40 eggs average 51.3 by 36.9 millimeters; the eggs showing 

 the four extremes measure 57 by 36.8, 50.5 by 39.5, 46 by 35 milli- 

 meters. 



Plumages. — I have no specimens of the downy young of the yellow- 

 crowned night heron, nor any partially fledged young; and I can not 

 find any descriptions of them in print. In the full juvenal plumage 

 in August, the crown and occiput are black, with whitish shaft streaks, 

 and a few long whitish, hairlike plumes remain on the tips of some 

 feathers; the sides of the head are streaked with "fuscous" and 

 whitish; the mantle is "bister," or "warm sepia," with terminal, buffy 

 arrowheads on the feathers of the back and wing-coverts; the chin 

 and throat are white; the neck and under parts arc pale buff and 

 white, broadly striped with "olive brown," "hair brown" and "fus- 

 cous"; the remiges and roctrices are "dark grayish brown," or "fus- 

 cous," very narrowly tipped with white when fresh; the white tips 

 soon wear away. 



This juvenal plumage is worn through the first fall and winter, 

 until February or March, when a complete first prenuptial molt 

 begins; by the time that this molt is finished, in May, the entire 

 plumage has been changed, except perhaps a few old, juvenal wing- 

 coverts, showing a decided advance towards maturity; the head 

 pattern suggests that of the adult, but the crown is brownish, black 



