Vol 'l9Cm m ] Cameron, Nesting of Great Blue Heron. 257 



black. A number of feathers at the bend of the wing are white, 

 broadly edged with bright chestnut. Below, the bird is mixed 

 black and white with traces of chestnut. The chin is white and 

 the crown black with only the commencement of a crest which is 

 just beginning to grow. The tibiae are pale chestnut; their bare 

 portions pale green; the tarsus and feet slate gray. Upper mandi- 

 ble, black; lower, yellow. Irides, yellow. 



This description would also serve for the bird at two months old, 

 excepting that the occipital plumes are then well developed. 



The island heronry in the Yellowstone was, of course, in a much 

 more inaccessible and romantic situation which in the absence of a 

 boat could only be reached on horseback when the river was low. 

 Indeed, at certain times the densely wooded island was under water, 

 this being the case when the herons first commenced building oper- 

 ations. The existence of the nests could only be suspected by 

 watching the birds flying to them, for, though it was possible to 

 make out two of the highest with extremely powerful binoculars, 

 the heronry, on the whole, was well hidden by cottonwoods from 

 ordinary observation. We visited this island on July 30, when 

 the stream separating it from the north shore was narrow and only 

 girth deep. During the June rise, a few weeks earlier, it would 

 have been about 250 yards wide. For a short distance after landing 

 it was necessary to force a way through willows as high as the rider's 

 head, but otherwise there was little underbrush on the island, which 

 extended to about a quarter of a mile each way, and was everywhere 

 carpeted with a luxuriant growth of golden-rods, wild rye, and tall 

 sand-grass. A few thickets of bulberry bushes could easily be 

 avoided. 



The heronry contained altogether eighteen nests, which were 

 placed in the tallest trees on a sandbank sloping gradually to the 

 main channel of the river, here about 300 yards wide. In two 

 trees, containing altogether ten nests, several could be reached by 

 climbing, the trunks in this case being so close together that the 

 topmost branches intermingled. The distance from these nests 

 to the ground was fifty measured feet. On our arrival numbers 

 of the fully fledged young stood at their nests causing an effect which, 

 when seen through the leafy screen, against an intensely blue sky, 

 recalled the pictorial achievements on Japanese china. All, except 

 two or three which scrambled back into the nests, flew away upon 



