2 DISTRIBUTION OF THE AMERICAN EGRETS. 



smaller, snowy egret. It breeds in colonies and the nests are 

 usually placed high up in tall trees standing near or in water. 

 The habit of breeding in colonies has greatly facilitated the work 

 of destruction, since the market hunter has only to visit the rook- 

 ery when the young are in the nests (the plumes of the parent 

 birds are then at their finest) to kill off the entire colony. No 

 matter how often the parents are shot at, they will continue to return 

 with food for the young until the last one perishes. Incidentally the 

 young are left to starve. 



The egret is one of the most widely distributed of the whole family 

 of herons. Originally it ranged from southern Canada to Patagonia, 

 and throughout the whole of that extensive area the same story of 

 persecution has been repeated. To-day there is no place in its North 

 American range where it is common. The largest colonies in the 

 United States were formerly along the Gulf coast from Louisiana to 

 Florida, up the Atlantic coast to southern New Jersey, and up the 

 larger rivers of the Mississippi Valley to Wisconsin and Indiana. So 

 generally distributed were these herons in Indiana that they have 

 been known to nest in Knox, Gibson, Daviess, Dekalb, Steuben, 

 Noble, Jasper. Porter, Lake, and Starke Counties. The southern 

 third of Indiana marked the northern limit of the great breeding 

 colonies, where, in Daviess County, as many as a thousand birds have 

 been seen in a single flock ; but smaller colonies nested north to north- 

 ern Indiana, and even two-thirds of the way up the western shore of 

 Lake Michigan to Two Rivers, TVis. 



The numbers formerly breeding near the Pacific coast were not as 

 great as in the interior, owing to the lack of suitable nesting sites, 

 but several strong colonies existed around Tulare Lake, CaL, and a 

 large colony found congenial conditions near Malheur Lake, in east- 

 ern Oregon. So thoroughly has the plume hunter done his work 

 that only a pitiable fraction is left in California. 



Notwithstanding the severe persecution to which the birds have 

 been subjected, a remnant of the, species is still left, for during the 

 last 10 years the birds haVe been recorded at the following places : 



Rhode Island: East Greenwich, August 16, 1904; Ponlt Judith, August 2, 1909. 



New York: Montauk, July 23, 1900; Ontario County; August, 1905; East Wind- 

 ham, July 18, 1908. 



New Jersey: Ridgewood, July, 1902; Wading River, August, 1905: Englewood, 

 July 22, 1906; Black Point, July 6. 1DOS; Sea bright, August fi, inos. 



Pennsylvania: Berwyn, July 26, 1902; Bristol, July 20, 1906; Ashbourne, July 

 30, 1906. 



Ohio: Cincinnati, August, 1902. 



Indiana: Waterloo, April 22, 1905. 



Arkansas: Walker Lake, nested 1910. 



Missouri: A few nested. in southeastern part of State before 1900. 



Nebraska: Nehawka, May 2, 1905. 



Colorado: Near Denver, April 26, 1907. 



