74 WILD WINGS 



graphs, and this nest was very inconveniently situated. The 

 only way I could manage was to balance myself on the slen- 

 der branch close beside it, and take snap-shots, there being 

 no possible place to attach a camera. Around me in the tree- 

 tops were several other nests with tiny young. Noticing that 

 one brood were beginning to succumb under the sun's rays, 

 I covered those near me with leaves till I had taken the de- 

 sired pictures. The mother cormorants were quite solicitous, 

 alighting quite near me on the tops of the trees, and I secured 

 some pictures of them. 



Everywhere I went there were varying numbers of the nests 

 of the Louisiana Heron scattered about. Some of these con- 

 tained eggs, curiously in this rookery almost always three, 

 whereas the year before in central Florida I invariably found 

 four or five to a nest. Whenever the young herons were 

 large enough to stand up, they would usually scramble out 

 of the nest when I tried to photograph them. It was only with 

 much difficulty that I finally succeeded in securing a picture 

 of a whole family of young in their rude home. I also caught 

 a well-grown youngster, and placed him upon a horizontal 

 trunk, the guide thwarting his determination to escape until 

 I had taken his portrait several times. 



I also inspected the comparatively small colony of the 

 Little Blue Heron along the eastern shore of the island, where 

 they nested in the mangroves out over the water. Four blue 

 eggs was the usual complement of their nests, or varying 

 numbers of young. At first the young of this species are pure 

 white ; then slaty-blue feathers crop out ; but it is not until 

 their third summer is near that they don their complete 

 dark bluish uniform. One poor little white fellow had fallen 

 into the water, and was nearly chilled and exhausted when 

 I found him. I put him back into his nest out at the end of 

 the branches, and set one of his dry and contented brothers 



