a 
SQUACCO HERON. 489 
would have been impossible for us to have discovered this colony without 
aguide. It took us four hours’ rowing across country to reach it. As 
far as we could see, from the bluffs which form the western boundary of 
the steppes of the Dobrudscha, the country beyond was under water. 
After crossing the main stream we entered a bed of rushes, and passing by 
a colony of Black Terns, we rowed down a long wide lane with walls of 
reeds on each side, and sprinkled all over with water-lilies in full bloom, 
the stalk of one we pulled up measuring eight feet. Then we crossed 
meadows gay with the yellow flowers of the spurge, having occasionally to 
get out of the boat to push it over a mud-bank. Crossing a large lake 
where Swans floated amongst scattered reeds, and a pair of Grey-lag Geese 
were flying round as if we were near their nest, we entered a labyrinth of 
willows and meadows, sometimes gliding with the current between rows 
of willows, where the stream was too narrow to admit of the use of oars, 
and where we had frequently to lie down in the boat to squeeze under the 
branches of the trees. After crossing another main arm of the river our 
guide pointed out to us a large forest of pollard willows about half a mile 
square, in the centre of which he told us we should find the great Heron- 
colony. We approached it across a lake thinly sprinkled over with reeds ; 
now and then we could see a Little Egret; and small parties of Cor- 
morants and Ibises occasionally flew over the forest, but there were no 
signs of our being near any great breeding-place. No one would ever 
have suspected that the forest contained the treasures it did, nor would 
any one who did not know every inch of the ground have been able to 
find a way to it in a boat across country. The water was from five to 
seven feet deep, so that wading was entirely out of the question. For- 
tunately the trees were not very crowded, being planted, for the most part, 
in groups, leaving paths wide enough for the boat in every direction. The 
part occupied by the colony was near the centre of the forest, and con- 
sisted of four or five hundred pollard willows, each of which contained 
from five to twenty-five nests, belonging to five species of birds. The 
place of honour in each tree was generally occupied by the large nest of a 
Common Heron, whilst almost every available fork contained smaller nests 
of the Little Egret and Night-Heron and, smallest of all, the nests of the 
Pigmy Cormorant and the Squacco Heron. Before we penetrated the 
centre of this great breeding-colony, which must have consisted of at least 
five thousand nests, we found ourselves in the midst of a perfect babel of 
birds. We had disturbed many hundred Herons from their nests, some of 
which were flying round us in every direction, whilst others were perched 
in the slender branches of the willows, the snowy white Little Egrets con- 
trasting with the almost black Pigmy Cormorants. It was difficult to say 
which looked most out of place as the branches bent beneath their weight. 
Most of the birds, probably the males, flew round and round far above 
