2b4 Bent, Nestittg Habits of Florida Herodiones. LApril 



Probably the young learn to fly soon after leaving the nest, for we 

 found no young birds in the trees about any of the nests, as we 

 did with all of the smaller Herons. 



Herodias egretta. American Egret. 



This beautiful plume bird is, I am sorry to say, fast becoming a 

 rare bird in Florida, though it still occurs in small numbers all 

 through the interior of the State. It is by no means wary, is so 

 strongly attached to its home and is so courageous in the defence 

 of its young that it has been an easy matter for the plume hunters 

 to annihilate rookery after rookery. In Brevard County we visited 

 two localities, small cypress swamps, where the year before large 

 breeding rookeries of Egrets existed, but not an occupied nest 

 was to be seen and only two or three scattering birds flying off in 

 the distance. On the upper St. Johns we saw a few American 

 Egrets but found no nests. It is known here as the "big white 

 heron " and can be distinguished at a distance from the Snowy or 

 Little Blue Herons by its slower and heavier flight. Undoubtedly 

 a few Egrets still breed in this region in the rookeries with other 

 species. 



In Monroe County we found the American Egrets breeding 

 sparingly in the large rookeries with the White Ibises and the 

 smaller Herons. Among the 4000 birds at the Cuthbert rookery 

 we counted 18 American Egrets and found seven nests. The 

 birds were very tame, constantly alighting in the trees near us, 

 and we could easily have killed as many as we wanted, but the 

 A. O. U. warden, Mr. G. M. Bradley, who acted as our guide, was 

 so solicitous for their welfare that we refrained from shooting a 

 single bird ; one wounded bird, unable to fly, was the only speci- 

 men we obtained. Most of the nests were in the low red man- 

 groves over the water, but one was near the top of a black 

 mangrove on a horizontal branch 15 feet from the ground. 



The nests were about as large as Night Heron's, loosely and 

 poorly made of coarse sticks and not as smoothly lined as most 

 Heron's nests. Three of the nests held eggs, one set of two and 

 two sets of three, of the typical color, light greenish blue varying 

 in intensity. The other nests had young of various ages, from 



