i68 JUNGLE FOLK 



They love their young, but not so much as they love 

 themselves, so they leave their offspring at the first 

 approach of the human visitor and remain away until 

 he turns his back on their nesting-ground. A night 

 heron never allows his valour to get the better of his 

 discretion. The nest is a platform of twigs placed any- 

 where in a tree. Four pale greenish-blue eggs are laid. 

 A heronry is a filthy place. The possessors are, like 

 our Indian brethren, utterly regardless of the principles 

 of sanitation. The whole island will be found white 

 with the droppings of the birds, and the unsavoury 

 smell that emanates therefrom would do credit to a 

 village inhabited by chamars. Although they are evil- 

 tempered, cantankerous creatures, night herons always 

 nest in company. It is no uncommon thing to find 

 half a dozen nests in the same tree, so that the sitting 

 birds are able to comipare notes while engaged in the 

 duties of incubation. Both the parent birds take part 

 in nest construction, and, as they work by day, it is 

 quite easy to watch the process. They wrench small 

 branches from trees, and, as they have only the beak 

 with which to grasp these, they find twig-gathering 

 hard work. When a twig has been secured it is dropped 

 on to the particular part of the tree in which the bird 

 has thought fit to build. Forty or fifty twigs dropped 

 haphazard in a heap constitute the nest. The birds 

 make a great noise while engaged in building. Quarrels 

 are of frequent occurrence. It sometimes happens 

 that two birds want the same twig ; this invariably 

 gives rise to noisy altercation. The crows too are 

 provocative of much bad language on the part of the 



