THE NIGHT-HERON. 2 s 



a rule) to as many as ten, pure white cylinderical plumes. Its bill is black, its 

 legs and feet yellow, and the bare skin round the eyes pale green. The bird's 

 length is about 23 inches. 



The female is like the male in all respects ; but in the winter both sexes 

 become darker and more glossed with green, and lose their long white occipital 

 plumes. 



The Night-Heron is to be found chiefly in the neighbourhood of swamps and 

 marshes, and amid the pollard brakes or bushes growing in such places ; its nest 

 will be found on a branch, set generally only a few feet above the level of the 

 water. This is, however, not an invariable habit, for the bird often Stork-like 

 selects the very tops of lofty trees in a wood, or even in the depths of a forest ; 

 while at other times it will build low down, quite among the reeds. It is not 

 only a gregarious bird, but one evidently very sociable and fond of company ; for 

 often enough, on the same tree with it, there will be found nests not only of its 

 own species, but of several other Herons, Squacco and Common Herons, as well 

 as of Egrets, and even Cormorants. In the month of May, the Night-Heron 

 begins its building operations, constructing its nest entirely of sticks, very loosely 

 laid together, lined with smaller twigs, all of which are arranged to radiate from 

 the centre. In this gaping bundle of sticks, which a man looking up from below 

 can see right through, the Night-Heron deposits from three to five eggs, in size 

 averaging from a little under 2 inches in length, by ijj inches in breadth, of a pale 

 greenish colour. From these emerge, in June or July, nestlings covered, as 

 Saunders states, with down of a purplish grey, tipped with white on the crown, 

 and white on the flanks and belly. Its bare skin is sea-green. 



The brood is fed at intervals during the day by the parents, with food fetched 

 often from a long distance ; but (as their name, derived from their nocturnal 

 habits, indicates) it is chiefly, though by no means exclusively, in the dusk and 

 night that they are most active. Then also it is that the babel produced by the 

 young, even from a small heronry, is such as is never likely to be forgotten by 

 those who have had the chance to hear it. During the daylight hours the Night- 

 Heron, when it has no nest, sits hidden away, in a tree, in some retired corner, 

 dozing, with his neck drawn back on his shoulders. 



Among the drawings of birds on the Egyptian tombs, is one of a species 

 called the "Tufted Benno," of which "the best drawings," remarks Dr. A. Leith 

 Adams, in his " Natural History and Archaeology of the Nile Valley," " I have 

 seen rather incline to the belief that the ancients meant the Night-Heron with its 

 long white plumes, [and not the Cattle-Egret, as Sir Gardner Wilkinson is disposed 

 to consider it.] This tenant of the river may be seen during the day resting 



VOL IV. E 



