82 ALLEN'S naturalist's LIRRARY. 



reverend in every respect excepting as regards the protection 

 of rare birds in England. 



Range outside the British Islands. — From Soutliern and Central 

 Europe the Night-Heron extends across Asia to China and 

 Japan, and again throughout Africa, always, of course, in 

 localities suited to its habits. In North America it is also 

 found in the temperate portions, ranging south through Central 

 America to the West Indies, and to Colombia and Ecuador in 

 South America. In Brazil its place is taken by an allied 

 species, JV. tayazu-guira, which ranges to Peru and south to 

 Chili, Patagonia, and the Falkland Islands, while a third 

 species, N. cya?iocephaliis^ is found from Chili south to the 

 Straits of Magellan. 



Hahits. — The Night-Heron is one of the skulking Herons, 

 and, except at the breeding-places, is not easily observed. " It 

 is," says Mr. Seebohm, "almost exclusively a swamp-feeding 

 bird, and the stomachs of those I examined contained fresh- 

 w^ater crustaceans and the tender shoots of water-plants. It 

 also feeds on small fish, small frogs and tadpoles, water-beetles, 

 the larvje of dragon-flies and other insects, worms and snails. 



My acquaintance with the Night-Heron was made in the 

 HanScig marshes in Plungary towards the end of May, 1891. 

 On a very hot morning we had been pursuring a tortuous 

 course through the reed-beds, a cavalcade of nineteen boats in 

 all, listening to the varied calls of the marsh-birds. Terns, Geese, 

 Wood-Sandpipers, Grasshopper-Warblers, Great Sedge-Warblers, 

 &c., when the word was passed for silence, as we were approach- 

 ing the nesting-place of the Night-Herons. As we drew near 

 we could hear a croaking, but so silently had we come along 

 that but few birds could be seen, until a shot from one of the 

 leading boats startled the whole colony of Night-Herons into 

 life, and the air became full of them. Their eggs were freshly 

 laid, there were no young in the nests to awaken parental 

 feelings, but their anxiety manifested itself in the way in which 

 they flew round and round, hovering over their nests, and 

 many victims fell before the colony elected to move farther 

 off. The water was nearly up to one's waist, but my boatman 

 volunteered to wade it, and soon returned with several birds 

 and a hatful of eggs. All attempts to make him understand 

 that I wanted the nests separately with the clutches of egg? 



