THE BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON. a 
cluding back and interscapular region) lustrous greenish black; the occipital 
crest with several narrow, much-elongated, cylindrical, pure white plumes; re- 
maining upperparts ashy- or smoky-gray; edge of wing white; bill black; lores 
greenish; irides red; legs yellow. Jmimature: Above fuscous, with central 
stripes, or centro-terminal wedge-shaped spots of white and buffy; green-tinged 
on crown and back, or not, according to age; below and on sides of head and 
neck white heavily streaked with fuscous. Length 23.00-26.00 (584.2-660.4) ; 
wing 12.50 (317.5); tail 4.75 (120.6); bill 3.00 (76.2); tarsus 3.30 (83.8) ; 
middle toe and claw 3.45 (87.6). 
Recognition Marks.—Brant size; greenish black crown and mantle of adult 
contrasting with ashy gray; general streakiness of young. 
Nesting.—Nest: a platform of sticks, usually placed high in trees, but occa- 
sionally in low bushes or even on the ground. Eggs, 4-6, pale, dull blue. Av. 
size, 2.00 xX 1.45 (50.8 x 36.8). Season: May; one brood. 
General Range.—America from Ontario and Manitoba southward to the 
Falkland Islands, including part of the West Indies. 
Range in Washington.—Not common summer resident and migrant east of 
the Cascade Mountains, chiefly in Douglas County; of rare occurrence but 
possibly resident on Puget Sound. 
Authorities.—Keck, Wilson Bulletin, No. 47, June, 1904, p. 34. ‘T. C&S. 
Wee elk 
Specimens.—(U. of W.) C. 
TRUE to their name, the Black-crowned Night Herons fly and 
hunt chiefly by night. On this account and because of their throaty notes, 
they have ever been the objects of superstitious dread on the part of 
savages; and the sounds which they make are not exactly comforting to 
the ears of white men, save those of the hardened ornithologist. The 
well-known cry may sometimes be allowed to pass as quawk (never 
“qua’), but usually it is jerked out with emphasis or ill-nature, and 
sounds more like wauwrk, or wawrk. Harmless as the monosyllable may 
appear when uttered singly, and when divested of its ghostly suggestive- 
ness, the din raised by a Heron rookery is said to be mighty and discordant 
beyond words. 
As the nesting season imposes greater obligations upon the parents they 
hunt by day as well as by night, being found sometimes singly but oftener 
in pairs, moving from place to place with laggard wings beating in stately 
syncopation. 
This bird may be seen to advantage about the undisturbed lakes of 
the arid transition zone in eastern Washington. Here it moves about slug- 
gishly at the edge of a pool, or else, posting on a commanding block of basalt, 
one will stand sentinel by the hour, head withdrawn between shoulders like 
an adjutant in a great coat, unobserving (apparently), unmindful of the 
passage of time, a somber gray figure which embodies better than anything 
else the dear desolation of the wilderness. 
