430 Bailey, Plum Inland Night Herons. [oct" 



placed within a few feet only from the ground, several nearly or 

 quite on it, but most of these were in such tangled thickets none 

 but a weasel or winged enemy could gain access to them. The 

 climbing of these trees was not a task for one considerate of clean 

 clothes or sensitive nostrils for they were well white-washed, which 

 served as a deterrent to &ny but the most enthusiastic. A few of 

 the nests contained at this early date, downy young ten days 

 or a fortnight old and the thin piping whistle-like voices of these 

 helped to increase the uproar going on overhead among the adults. 

 Many of the nests we visited contained sets of eggs well advanced 

 in incubation. In fact the most of those that we saw were more or 

 less advanced and it was only after considerable searching and 

 difficulty that we were able to obtain a few comparatively fresh 

 sets. As we visited several groups of trees, each containing numer- 

 ous nests we had an opportunity to make note not only of the differ- 

 ent stages of incubation but the various number of eggs making up 

 a set. In three instances I saw nests containing only two eggs and 

 these apparently were full sets in these cases for they were well 

 along toward the time of hatching. In not a few other nests, 

 three seemed to be the complement. But by far the greater number 

 contained four and a few even five, the last named figure the high- 

 est I saw in any of them. The difference of time represented be- 

 tween fresh sets and the young birds of several days of age would 

 go to show that there was considerable variation among the differ- 

 ent pairs regarding the date of commencing household duties. A 

 few pairs must take them up soon after their arrival in mid April; 

 others in a more leisurely fashion as indicated by the fresher sets. 



I took for my collection a few fresh sets of four and five, of the 

 Night Herons, and a set of four of the Little Green Heron, 

 Butorides virescens virescens, a nest of which I was fortunate in 

 finding in a thicket of low bushes near the center of the hollow. 



A few crows hovered around the margin of the woodland, and 

 in several places I saw punctured, empty and broken egg shells 

 which appeared not to have been broken after the usual manner 

 of hatching, and from these evidences I suspected the cause of the 

 crows neighborliness. Though in justice to the crow I would add, 

 that it seemed not improbable that some eggs might be rolled out 

 of the shallow nests, occasionally by the herons themselves in set- 



