72 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



very interesting to watch a pair of Herons building their nest. 

 One bird (presumably the female) stands on the nest, while 

 the other goes away and collects sticks. These he brings in 

 his mouth, and gives to his mate. The sticks are gathered on 

 the ground, sometimes close to the tree in which is the nest, 

 sometimes several hundred yards away. All sorts of sticks 

 are collected. On approaching the nest the male, who is 

 evidently very proud of his home and his mate, usually utters 

 some loud croaks, at the same time straightening himself out in 

 the air, and on alighting he sticks his crest bolt upright, all of 

 which is no doubt for the delectation of the hen-bird. She 

 gets up on her legs, which have been tucked in under her on 

 the nest, takes the stick from him and arranges it. Then after 

 a few minutes spent in preening his feathers, the cock goes off 

 again, and the same routine is gone through. Apparently the 

 male continues to bring sticks after incubation has commenced. 

 Herons seem to make love to each other on their nesting- 

 trees, and I have seen the male caressing the female on the nest. 

 The nests are far from conspicuous for such large structures, 

 even when the hen-bird is sitting, unless she shows the white 

 part of her head. During incubation I have seen the birds 

 change places on the eggs very neatly. One bird approached 

 the nest, and just before it arrived the other, who was sitting 

 on the eggs, glided off and left ; the whole thing was done so 

 quietly that it was almost as inconspicuous as if one bird had 

 merely flown over the nest. Herons return to their nests early 

 in January, but those pairs which have to build new nests 

 naturally get their eggs laid later than those which have nests 

 already built. The last young ones left on July 28th, 1891, 

 and about the same time in 1892, but, after leaving the nest, 

 they seemed to return for a few days to it every evening, prob- 

 ably for the night." 



Nest. This is a large structure, usually built on trees, but 

 where these are not available it is sometimes placed on cliffs 

 or shrub-covered crags and ruins. Mr. Robert Read writes : 

 " In an island off the west coast of Scotland I have found a 

 colony of Herons nesting on low hawthorn-bushes. The bushes 

 were very thick, and the nests about four feet in diameter, 

 made externally of large sticks and lined internally with fine 

 birch-twigs. The structure seemed to entirely cover the tops 



