Food of Herons and Ibises. 167 



Airs. Solger's notes accurately described it in 1S9T, and 

 told of its nesting and rearing- a brood in 189<S. By an 

 oversight lier observations were not inchukd in the bird 

 bulletin published by the Chicago Academy of Sciences a 

 few years ago.^ 



That the birds have nested along the Des Plaines year 

 after year is quite probable, for the conditions are ideal, both 

 as to nesting sites and food supply. 



The discovery of the Riverside ntst positively establishes 

 the fact of the Prothonotary breeding much farther north in 

 Illinois than previously reported, and sets a new nesting 

 record for Cook County. 



The nest and its occupants were visited by a number of 

 bird lovers before its desertion, some of them coming pur- 

 posely from quite a long distance. Several attempts weie 

 made to photograph the parent birds while perching on the 

 edge of the lantern, but no good negatives were produced 

 on account of poor light. 



Mr. Ben. T. Gault of Glenn Ellyn, 111., photographed the 

 pavilion from across the river, and the accompanying pic- 

 ture shows the remarkable nesting site- 



' The P.inls of the ("hici-o Area. ]".M»7. 



FOOD OF HERONS AND IBISES. 



BY OSCAR E. BAYNARD. 



During the past three years that I have been Warden of 

 the Orange Lake Florida Reservation of the National As- 

 sociation of Audubon Societies I made a special effort to 

 learn the exact kind of food that the Herons and Ibis prefer. 



From the following list it will be seen that these birds do 

 a lot more good to the country than any one has given them 

 credit for. The Ibis for their- fondness for Crayfish have 

 about cleaned up the thousands of acres of flooded marshes 

 around Orange Lake and the other known fact that Crayfish 

 destroy thousands of the spawn of fish and I have noticed 

 that lakes and ponds that have marshes around them and no 



