The Audubon Societies 163 



FOR AND FROM ADULT AND YOUNG 

 OBSERVERS 



THE BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON 



(Nycticorax nycticorax naevius) 

 By ■WILLIAM GOULD VINAL, The Rhode Island Normal School 



A METHOD OF STUDY 

 I. SUBJECT MATTER. 



The Black-crowned Night Heron is known more commonly when called by one of 

 its nicknames: Squawk, Quawk, or Qua Bird. In some of the southern states it is 

 known as Gros-bec, Indian Hen, or Indian Pullet. The bird receives the first of these 

 appellations from its call as it flies to and from its hunting-ground late in the afternoon 

 or at night. Longfellow gives the proper setting, in 'Evangeline,' when he says, 

 "Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by the herons 

 Home to their roosts in the cedar trees returning at sunset." 

 The Black-crowned is the most abundant and familiar of the Heron family. A 

 large colony of these birds has a breeding-ground on Cape Cod, not far from Camp 



YELLOW-CROW NKl) AM) [SLACK CROWNED NIGHT HERONS 

 From Specimens in the Arnold Biological Laboratory, Brown University 



Chequesset, a girls' camp, where the writer had frequent opportunity to visit the her- 

 onry and to e.xperiment upon the birds with the camera. This particular colony is in a 

 pitch-pine grove which is located near a marsh. 



If one enters the rookery in daytime — which is usually bedtime for this species — 

 he finds things rather quiet until discovered. The invader is then serenaded with a 

 great din. The parents fly into the air, squawking and cackling promiscuously. Blanchan 

 likens it to pandemonium, and Wilson compares the noise with that of two or three 

 hundred Indians "choking or throtthng" each other. Such is the heralding as one enters 

 the sanctum sanctorum of herondom. 



The housekeeping is no more inviting than the notes of greeting. The ground 

 and trees are white with excrement, and a foul odor comes from decomposing pieces 



