Vo '-™ VI ] General Notes. 101 



Great Blue Heron. — Fish in diet, 55%. J. Josselyn in his ' Two 

 Voyages to New England ' states that the finest game the colonists found 

 was the Great Blue Heron. I have tried it and in flavor it is much like the 

 Scoters, but the meat is much finer grained and very rich in fat. (Jones.) 

 Adult is rather tough but of very fine flavor, a hearty meat more like beef 

 than that of a bird. Juvenile, tender and more delicate. I regard this 

 bird as the finest wild bird I have ever eaten under camp conditions. Tried 

 it fried, broiled, and stewed. (Taverner.) Have found the young bird in 

 the first autumn delicious eating. (Witmer Stone.) 



Green Heron. Fish in diet, 40%. Very good, a little more delicate 

 than the Night Heron. (Taverner.) 



Black-crowned Night Heron. — Fish in diet, 40%. Very good, not 

 quite as hearty as the Great Blue Heron. (Taverner.) 



Mr. Taverner also reports that at Perce in 1914 and 1915 he tested 

 Puffins, Murres and Razor-billed Auks, birds which make fish about 60% 

 of their diet, and found all ot them delicious. 



In considering evidence on this subject it is necessary to distinguish 

 clearly between a true fishy taste and the much more common merely 

 strong or rank flavor. They are commonly confused. It has been sug- 

 gested that fishy flavor may be due to a diet of mollusks rather than of fish, 

 but in the writer's opinion this theory will no more bea<- searching analysis 

 than the other. For instance Scoters and Eiders, almost exclusive mollusk 

 feeders along the New England coast, are not fishy in flavor, and may easily 

 be made into good dishes as the writer knows from experience. Robin 

 Snipe collected on Wallops Island, Virginia, in spring and found to be 

 feeding exclusively on small mussels, were not at all fishy, in fact were as 

 good as any of the other shorebirds. In considering the effect of food upon 

 flavor it is necessary also to recognize a certain specificity in flavor. For 

 instance, in the corn belt hogs and cattle are kept under identical conditions 

 and have with only minor exceptions the same foods ; yet there is no chance 

 of confusing the pork and beef they yield. Somewhat the same case is 

 that of guinea fowl and chickens reared Upon the same diet, but in flavor 

 very easy to distinguish. 



The writer does not wish to be understood to believe that food does not 

 influence flavor. Remarks by correspondents indicate that they got an 

 impression to this effect from the previous contribution, just what an effort 

 was made to avoid. The Spruce Grouse and the Sage Hen, for instance, are 

 two striking examples among American birds of food controlling flavor. 

 The points chiefly emphasized are that fish-eating does not necessarily 

 cause fishy flavor, and that the latter does exist in individual birds that in 

 all probability have not acquired it by eating fish. In the light of the 

 evidence the writer holds neither of these points is subject to dispute. — 

 W. L. McAtee. 



Egrets (Herodias egretta) in Northern New Jersey. — On August 4, 

 1918, two Egrets {Herodias egretta) were seen by the writer at a small 



