26o Birds Every Child Should Know 



associate with the heron tribe. Flocking is 

 sometimes a fatal habit. 



BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON 



Called also: Quawk; Qua Bird 



When the night herons return to us from the 

 South in April, they go straight to the home of 

 their ancestors, to which they are devotedly 

 attached — rickety, ramshackle heronries, mere 

 bundles of sticks in the tops of trees in some 

 swamp — and begin at once to repair them. 

 The cuckoo's and the dove's nests are fine 

 pieces of architecture compared with a heron's. 

 Is it not a wonder that the helpless heron babies 

 do not tumble through the loose twigs? When 

 they are old enough to climb around their lat- 

 ticed nursery, they still make no attempt to 

 leave it, and several more weeks must pass be- 

 fore they attempt to fly. If there is an ancient 

 heronry in your neighbourhood, as there is in 

 mine, don't attempt to visit the untidy, ill- 

 smelling place on a hot day. One would like 

 to spray the entire colony with a deodoriser. 



Thanks to the night heron's habits that keep 

 him concealed by day when gunners are abroad, 

 a few large heronries still exist within an hour's 

 ride of New York, in spite of much persecution. 



