i9i5 J Bailey, Plum Island Night Herons. 441 



several times again this season, but considering them a permanent 

 fixture of the region or at least pretty certainly to be depended upon 

 to be present each year, I neglected to follow them up closely, 

 and so lost an opportunity for securing further interesting data 

 concerning them, for on visiting the locality the following year, 

 May 23, 1909, I found the rookery completely deserted. The 

 reason for this condition was not plainly apparent, and left the 

 question therefore rather to conjecture than to any satisfactory 

 solution. It was true that the herons during the past two seasons 

 had been much persecuted here and that during the winter of 1908- 

 09 a few of the larger trees had been cut in the wooded hollow in 

 which they had made their homes and more of the trees of the shad 

 and cherry species had succumbed to the attacks of the pestiferous 

 brown tail moths, but notwithstanding these disturbing factors, 

 much good cover was left unharmed, and the herons are remarkably 

 tenacious and persistent in regard to nesting in a favorite locality 

 in the face of annoying circumstances. On the whole it seemed to 

 me that there must have been more pernicious contributory causes 

 to drive them from this place, used probably for over twenty- 

 five years. 



I have visited the Island each year since that time and searched 

 the brushy cover, pretty thoroughly, well down toward the north- 

 ern Ipswich boundary, and although I have seen a few scattered 

 herons along the creeks and ponds of the marshes, which would 

 seem to indicate nesting somewhere in the locality, I have failed 

 to find further proof of a nesting colony. 



Early in the present year I was informed by one familiar with the 

 waterways about the southern extremity of the Island, that the 

 herons had been nesting for a few seasons of late, in numbers, on a 

 small wooded islet in that vicinity. Subsequent inquiries and some 

 little searching on my own part have failed to locate the colony, 

 though the frequency with which one still sees the herons flying 

 about or feeding along the marshes would indicate the presence of 

 a rookery not far distant. 



