436 Bailey, Plum Island Night Herons. [q^ 



unnoticed until the first large drops called it unpleasantly to my 

 attention, then too late for me to seek a secure cover, so taking 

 refuge in the thickest tangle at hand, I enjoyed, in a rather melan- 

 choly manner, in this damp shelter, the lunch I had brought along 

 and at the same time served most unwillingly as a free lunch to 

 swarms of hungry mosquitoes. Lunch well over and the rain still 

 continuing without sign of immediate slackening, I decided on 

 a hasty retreat back to the car line arriving there in due season in a 

 somewhat moistened condition; but not wholly disappointed with 

 my visit and the things accomplished, and resolved to come again 

 later in the season. 



Accordingly, a week later, June 16, 1 again visited the Island and 

 rookery with the intention of making further observations to 

 supplement the unfinished work of the previous visit. The weather 

 on this date was clear and uncomfortably warm, with a gentle 

 southwesterly wind blowing. Arrived on the beach about 9 A.M. 

 and found the tide on the ebb and the ocean exceedingly calm. Far 

 down the beach in the direction I was going I saw again a good sized 

 flock of the herons feeding on the refuse along shore, but these 

 kept well ahead of me, making short flights from time to time as I 

 approached them. Numbers, with them, seem to beget wariness 

 and fear, for always when feeding in company in this manner, I 

 have found them to be extremely shy, whereas, when singly, or in 

 the case of only a few, one can frequently work up quite close to 

 them without alarming them. 



So calm was the water and quiet the air on this morning that 

 arrived at a point, off abreast of the rookery, I could plainly hear 

 the voices of the birds, young and old, in their haunts a quarter of a 

 mile away. I found the usual activity prevailing in the vicinity 

 of the nests. This was increased to a noisy clamor of alarm when 

 I entered the brushy growth surrounding them. Today as on 

 several previous occasions I secreted myself in some of the thick 

 undergrowth, that afforded a good outlook over many of the nearby 

 nests. In getting into this position I noted very few eggs in any 

 of the nests, most of them at this advanced date being hatched. 

 I saw one nest containing five eggs and secured a fair photograph 

 of it but only in three or four others did I see eggs. 



From my vantage point in the dense thicket I watched the do- 



