EGRET. 43 



Porto Rico, though recorded from Dominica (Verrill), Barbados 

 (Manning), and Trinidad (Leotaud), and from the islands of New 

 Providence, Andros, Eleuthera, Watlings, and Long, in the Bahamas 

 (Riley). It nested on the Galapagos (Rothschild and Hartert). 



Many herons have the strange habit of migrating northward after 

 the breeding season and are often common for several weeks in the 

 fall in districts far north of the breeding range. The egret is a 

 conspicuous example of birds with this habit, and these northward 

 movements in the fall have brought them to many places in Ohio, 

 New York, and New England, and north to Halifax, N. S. (Jones) ; 

 Grand Manan, N. B. (Deane) ; Calais, Me. (Boardman), near Port- 

 land, Me. (Knight) ; Godbout, Quebec (Comeau) ; Montreal, Canada 

 (Wintle) ; Rockcliffe, Ontario (Mcllwraith) ; Lake Nipissing, On- 

 tario (Seton) ; Rondeau, Ontario (Mcllwraith) ; Kalamazoo, Mich. 

 (Gibbs) ; Lanesboro, Minn. (Hvoslef) ; also northwestward in the 

 Missouri River Valley to Emporia, Kans. (Kellogg) ; Fairbury, 

 Nebr. (Swenk) ; Colorado Springs, Colo. (Aiken) ; Denver, Colo. 

 (Rockwell) ; Barr, Colo. (Hersey and Rockwell) ; Badger Lake, 

 Iowa (Lewis and Clark) ; Fort Lincoln, N. Dak. (Grinnell) ; and 

 even north to Lake Winnipegosis, Manitoba (Seton). 



The above statement represents the range of the egret before the 

 demands of the millinery trade had so woefully depleted its numbers. 

 Now the great colonies are entirely a thing of the past. The plume 

 hunter has made a clean sweep of all the heronries that were large 

 enough to make their exploitation profitable. Nor has the de- 

 struction been confined to the birds of the United States. The 

 same story of wholesale slaughter comes from Mexico, Central 

 America, the West Indies, and lastly from South America. It is 

 probable that the largest colonies still in existence are to be found in 

 Venezuela or near the equator, but even in these regions, remote and 

 difficult of access, the high market value of the plumes has proved a 

 sufficient incentive for the overcoming of all hardships, and the 

 colonies remaining are but a small part of the original numbers. A 

 few small colonies still exist in widely separated parts of Florida, 

 where breeding birds have been reported during the last few years 

 from Monroe County (Bent) ; Kissimmee (Beers) ; Sebastian (Chap- 

 man) ; Orange Lake (Baynard) ; and Tallahassee (Williams). The 

 species nested in 1910 near Charleston, S. C. (Wayne) ; a small flock 

 was seen during the breeding season of 1909 near Ellis Lake, N. C. 

 (Philipp) ; and a few birds nested in 1911 near Orton. Brunswick 

 County, N. C. (Brimley). It nested in 1908 near the delta of the 

 Mississippi, La. (Bowdish) ; and there were a few nests in 1910 at 

 Walkers Lake, Ark. (Widmann). On the Pacific slope, the great 

 heronry at Malheur Lake, Oreg., has been wiped out, except a few 



