LITTLE EGRET. 483 
The breeding-colonies of these birds on the Danube are very difficult 
to find, and can only be approached by a boat. The nests are generally 
placed in forests of pollard willows, but those only appear to be selected 
that are under water at the time of the rising of the river, which 
fixes the date for the commencement of their breeding-operations. 
~When I was in the valley of the Danube last spring we sailed down the 
river from Giurgivo for three days without discovering a heronry ; but on 
the evening of the third day, the number of Little Egrets and Night-Herons 
which we observed feeding on the marshes, near the little river which leads 
from the main stream to the town of Kalarash, was so great that we sus- 
pected the existence of a heronry in the neighbourhood. After watching 
for some time we discovered that many of the birds disappeared into a 
dense forest of pollard willows which was situated at the west angle of 
the junction of the two rivers. On the following morning, the 27th of 
May, we reached it, shooting a Night-Heron on the way. As we 
approached the forest we occasionally saw a Little Egret flying over; 
but there was nothing to denote that we were near a large colony of birds. 
The banks of the river were flooded in many directions, and we at length 
succeeded in reaching the forest, though we sometimes rowed over the tops 
of willow trees where the water was deep, and occasionally had to get 
out and push the boat over the shallows. In the forest the water was 
about four feet deep; but on its outskirts it rose as high as the tops of the 
trunks of the pollard willows, which presented a dense mass of boughs, 
through which it was impossible to force the boat. We succeeded, how- 
ever, in entering from behind, and by dint of pushing and squeezing, 
and a liberal use of the axe, we reached the outskirts of the colony, 
and having put on our wading-trousers proceeded to investigate it. 
The water was so deep that it was impossible for us to stoop, and it was 
with great difficulty that we selected places where the branches allowed us 
to squeeze through them. Before we reached the nests we could hear 
birds getting up with great flutter of wings, and our invasion of the colony 
was heralded by incessant cries. We walked or rather squeezed in for 
about fifty yards, threading our way through the labyrinth of boughs, and 
found ourselves in an intensely interesting position. The trees were full 
of nests, some of them so near the surface of the water that we could see 
the eggs without climbing. Few nests were more than from ten to twelve 
feet above the surface of the water, and some trees contained as many as 
ten nests with eggs belonging to three species, the Night-Heron, the Little 
Egret, and the Squacco Heron, those of the Little Egret being the most 
numerous. The nests of these birds were generally placed in a fork of a 
side branch of the pollard willows, and were made on quite a different 
model to that adopted by most birds: they were entirely composed of 
slender twigs, on some of which the leaves were still remaining; but the 
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