bird's nests, no. 2. 



GREEN HERON. 



July 26, i8g6, 2:15 p. m. — It was a sultry day, and after tramping a 

 mile, I had scarcely heard the note of a single bird. 1 forced my way, 

 as quietly as I conld, among the tall weeds and plum brush into a slight 

 opening where the plum thicket of the hill-side and the crab-apple thicket 

 of the bottom-land join. Just as I did so an old Green Heron, with a 

 great "qtiazvk,'' flew from a limb above her nest, where she had been 

 feeding one of her three young ones They had clambered about four 

 feet above the nest and stood with outstretched necks panting for breath 

 in the hot sun, motionless, except for the quick pulsations of their little 

 throats. The old one made such a noise at my approach that one of the 

 the young became frightened and let fall a four-inch sun-fish which it 

 had just swallowed. As long as I watched, the old one kept up a con- 

 tinuous harsh cry of "kiick'" — 'kuck'' — sometimes almost as loud as its 

 call of "qiiazc'k,'''' and sometimes, when T remained motionless, letting its 

 voice fall till it sounded like the steady tap-tap of a hammer in the dis- 

 tance, though the bird was only three or four feet away. The young 

 were almost covered with feathers above, while below there was nothing 

 but white down. They had more or less down all over. Their breasts 

 were streaked with brown and white. On the throat the streaks were 

 finer. The feathers on the back appeared to be black, tinged with 

 greenish and edged with rufous brown. There was a white stripe at the 

 bend of the shoulder. Their eyes were very bright and their feet were 

 large, of a dull yellow, tinged with green. Their bills were flesh-colored, 

 with black tips, and in the sun appeared translucent. After leaving this 

 nest, twenty-six feet further on I found another Green Heron's nest, 

 thirteen feet from the ground in a crab-apple tree. It contained four 

 young, entirely covered with whitish down. They became alarmed at 

 my coming up the tree, and each little fellow opened wide his bill and 

 dropped a sun-fish about two and one-half inches long at me. Though 

 they were so young, they began to scramble up the thorny branches a 

 full foot above the nest. At this time I had never heard of this habit, 

 but since, I see Mr. Harry C. Oberholser has recorded it.* One was in 



*Page 264. Bulletin of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. Technical 

 Series, Vol. 1, No. 4. Article XXIV: A Preliminary List of the Birds of Wayne Co., 

 Ohio, by Harry C. Oberholser. 



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