Notes on the Habits of the Breeding Water Birds 73 



a clump of myrtle bushes or a cluster of stunted live 

 oaks breaks the monotony of this long stretch of boggy 

 waste. The Tybee division of the Central of Georgia rail- 

 road traverses the entire length of the island, and for sev- 

 eral miles on both sides of the track are to be seen the 

 " pool tables." These curious formations are several dis- 

 connected series or groups of shallow depressions in the 

 hard marsh. Each group consists of six to ten symmetrical 

 oblong " tables," each measuring about eiglit liy twelve feet 

 and varying in depth from six to eighteen inches. At each 

 high tide these tables are flooded, and hence are always 

 full of water. Each receding tide leaves stranded in these 

 depressions myriads of minnows and much otlier aquatic 

 animal matter of various kinds. To these ''tables" num- 

 bers of Green Herons resort at low tide to secure this 

 choice food. 



With the advent of the first cool weather, which is 

 usually between the 5th and 15th of October, there begins 

 a pronounced southward migration which continues well 

 into November. I have noticed that on foggy or rainy 

 nights these flights are more noticeable, or perhaps it 

 should be said more audible, since the passing of the birds 

 would be unsuspected were it not for their loud squawks. 

 Their harsh notes can be heard throughout the night, the 

 more inclement the weather the noisier are the birds. A 

 few individuals winter, but during that season they are 

 widely scattered and therefore seldom detected. 



Nycticorax nycticorax naevius — 



Black-crowned Night Hekon. 

 This handsome heron must be included among the rare 

 breeding species. It nests in small numbers in the heron 

 colony on Ossabaw island, but nowhere else, as far as local 

 observers have been able to determine. The birds I found 

 breeding there in May, 1015, were very shy, and as it was 

 almost impossible to ])Ositively identify their eggs, due to 

 the great similarity between them and those of the Little 

 Blue and Louisiana Herons, little nesting data was se- 

 cured. 1 have not seen above ten or a dozen individuals of 



