THE MUSEUM. 



22 1 



considerable age. The catiip-site in 

 Fulton Co., N. Y. , at which the ala- 

 baster pipe was found, although plain- 

 ly Iroquoian as indicated by the orna- 

 mentation of the pottery, and appar- 

 ently a camp of long continued occu- 

 pancy, judging from the innumerable 

 fragments of pottery, bones and teeth 

 of wild animals preserved intact in the 

 ash-beds; still had certainly been aban- 

 doned before the coming of the very 

 earliest settler in either the Mohawk or 

 Hudson Valleys. This is plainly 

 shown by the entire absence of any- 

 thing showing contact with Europeans, 

 ia noticeable contradistinction with 

 certain other camp and village sites in 

 the vicinity, at which many objects of 

 European manufacture are found com- 

 mingled wtth the Iroquoian imple- 

 ments of bone, horn and stone, such 

 as bits and shreds of metal, steel, brass 

 or copper, bullets, hand-hammered 

 nails, beads, old coins, mostly English 

 haif-pence of the Georges, etc. 



Thet the Indians were quick to pro- 

 cure and use implements and orna- 

 ments, from the early settlers and 

 travelers has been often shown. Quot- 

 ing from Dr. Rau: "Simultaneously 

 with the settlement of the eastern 

 parts of North America by the whites, 

 there arose a traffic between them and 

 the Indians in their neighborhood, 

 which provided the latter with imple- 

 ments End utensils so far superior to 

 their own, that they soon ceased to 

 manufactiire and use them." 



Glenville. N. Y., ist July, 1896. 



A Visit to Some Maine Heroneries. 



What has become of the immense 

 colonies of Herons which used to nest 

 arruatlv in various suitable localities 



throughout this state, writes O. W. 

 Knight in the Maine Sportsman'! 

 With a view to answering the above 

 question I have sought information of 

 all possible sources, and have myself 

 visited three colonies of these birds 

 which I know of. 



On June 2nd, '95, I visited the nest- 

 ing place of about 50 pairs of Great 

 Blue Herons. The nests were all 

 placed^ in huge maple and birch trees 

 at the extremities of large limbs, and 

 in many cases there were four or five 

 nests in a single tree. At this time 

 the nests all contained young birds 

 which in some cases were nearly a 

 third grown. I should say that there 

 were at least 175 birds in the nests at 

 the time of my visit, and this would 

 be a very low estimate of their num- 

 bers allowing that there were from 

 three to five young in each nest. 



May 9th, '96, I visited this same 

 colony, which is situated near the 

 shores of a pond about 25 miles from 

 Bangor. I found the number of birds 

 sadly decreased, there being only 

 about 35 nests which seem to be oc- 

 cupied, but owing to their inaccessible 

 situations, we were able to e.xamine 

 only two of them, which contained 

 five eggs each. 



A number of trees which had con- 

 tained nests the previous year had 

 been cut down the previous summer, 

 as was evident by the dried leaves ad- 

 hering to the fallen trees. Whether 

 or not the young birds had left the 

 nests before the trtes were felled I was- 

 unable to determine. 



One fact was very evident and this 

 was that for some reason or other the 

 colony of birds had been diminished by 

 nearly one-third of the numbers which 

 were nesting the previous year, and 



