74 
WILD WINGS 
graphs, and this nest was very inconveniently situated. The 
only way I could manage was to balance myself on the slen¬ 
der branch close beside it, and take snap-shots, there being 
no possible place to attach a camera. Around me in the tree- 
tops were several other nests with tiny young. Noticing that 
one brood were beginning to succumb under the sun’s rays, 
I covered those near me with leaves till I had taken the de¬ 
sired pictures. The mother cormorants were quite solicitous, 
alighting quite near me on the tops of the trees, and I secured 
some pictures of them. 
Everywhere I went there were varying numbers of the nests 
of the Louisiana Heron scattered about. Some of these con¬ 
tained eggs, curiously in this rookery almost always three, 
whereas the year before in central Florida I invariably found 
four or five to a nest. Whenever the young herons were 
large enough to stand up, they would usually scramble out 
of the nest when I tried to photograph them. It was only with 
much difficulty that I finally succeeded in securing a picture 
of a whole family of young in their rude home. I also caught 
a well-grown youngster, and placed him upon a horizontal 
trunk, the guide thwarting his determination to escape until 
I had taken his portrait several times. 
I also inspected the comparatively small colony of the 
Little Blue Heron along the eastern shore of the island, where 
they nested in the mangroves out over the water. Four blue 
eggs was the usual complement of their nests, or varying 
numbers of 3mung. At first the young of this species are pure 
white ; then slat\"-blue feathers crop out; but it is not until 
their third summer is near that they don their complete 
dark bluish uniform. One poor little white fellow had fallen 
into the water, and was nearly chilled and exhausted when 
I found him. I put him back into his nest out at the end of 
the branches, and set one of his dr}" and contented brothers 
