THE NIGHT HERON. 411 
nests was not of the pleasantest, we limited our investiga- 
tions to the securing of a few of the most recently laid 
eggs. 
The eggs of the Night Heron are laid about the 20th of 
May. They are usually four in number, and their general 
form is an elongated ovoidal. In a great number of speci- 
mens, the color is generally bluish-green, sometimes a light 
pea-green or greenish-yellow. Their dimensions vary from 
9.15 by 1.50 inch to 2.05 by 1.40 inch. About the latter 
part of August, the young birds are found in deep woods, 
and by many are esteemed as excellent eating, as they are 
plump and fat. They leave for the South early in October. 
Mr. William Endicott, who visited the same heronry, gives 
the following description of it: “The first thing which 
called the attention of the explorer was the whiteness of 
the ground, owing to the excrements of the birds; the air 
hot and close was loaded with its keen, penetrating odor ; 
the fine particles of it, floating in the air and coming in con- 
tact with the perspiring body, made one smart all over. 
There was also a smell of the decaying fish which lay 
around ; some dropped by accident by the old birds (who, 
I believe, never stoop to pick them up again), and much 
more disgorged when their tree was assailed. These fish 
were mostly such as could not be obtained in the ponds and 
rivers. ‘I once saw a piece of a pout, and once a fragment 
of a pickerel, but most of the remains were those of herrings. 
The light-green eggs were usually four in number; but I 
have seen five and six repeatedly, and once seven, in a nest. 
The young are downy, soft, helpless things at first, but soon 
gain strength enough to climb to the upper branches, where 
they hang on with bill and claws, and are fed by their 
parents till nearly full-grown.” 
