BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 65 



black (sometimes dull black with little or no greenish) ; a narrow stripe on fore- 

 head reaching to eye ; sides of head, chin, throat and under parts white, of ten tinged 

 with a faint yellowish or a very delicate light purple color : wings and tail ashy- 

 blue ; neck, except in front, similar but paler. The adults frequently have 3 long 

 and white occipital feathers, which, when rolled together, appear as one thick round 

 feather. 



Youny. Bill (dried skin) black and yellowish ; iris light yellow ; legs yellowish ; 

 upper parts light-brown, spotted or streaked with whitish ; tail about same as adult ; 

 sides of head and neck, and under plumage generally, striped with whitish and 

 dusky. A young bird before me differs from the last chiefly in having top of head 

 and large space on interscapular region, dull brownish-gray, without spots. 



Habitat. America, from the British possessions southward to the Falkland 

 Islands, including part of the West Indies. 



Next to the Green Heron the Night Heron is unquestionably the 

 most abundant of the family in this state. The adult birds are easily 

 distinguished from other herons by the black feathers on top of head 

 and back, red eyes, and frequently three long, fine, white feathers, 

 which grow from the base of the head. The appellation, Night Heron, 

 is highly appropriate, as this bird is strictly nocturnal in its habits. 

 During the daytime the Night Heron is inactive, and generally is found 

 perched on a log or the limb of a tree in a quiet nook about the swamps 

 and streams. As twilight approaches this drowsy wader becomes, as it 

 were, a new being impelled, no doubt, by the pangs of hunger he 

 stands erect, the loose and shaggy plumage, which before seemed ill- 

 adapted to his body, now fits neat and closely as he carefully walks to 

 the extremity of the dead and decorticated limb on which he has been 

 dozing, and suddenly with a loud squaivk launches himself into the air, 

 uttering at short intervals his harsh note, and, rising above the trees of 

 the forest, he speedily visits some favorite mill-dam. These birds arrive 

 in Pennsylvania about the 25th of April and remain until the latter part 

 of September. They seem to repair at once on their arrival in spring to 

 localities where they are accustomed to breed. After the breeding sea- 

 son, i. e., about the middle of August, when the young are amply able to 

 provide for themselves these birds forsake their nesting-places and 

 become quite plentiful along the rivers, streams and bushy marshes. 

 The Night Heron rarely, if ever, breeds singly, but always in large 

 companies. I have visited, on different occasions, two of these breeding 

 resorts and found from twenty -five to seventy-five nests, which like those 

 of the other species, were built of sticks and placed usually In high 

 trees. In Berks county, near Blue Rock, for many years, this species 

 annually reared their young in the edge of a large woods along the 

 margin of which was a good-sized stream. In this place many of the 

 nests were built in a bunch of saplings, some fifteen or twenty feet high 

 and so small in diameter that it was impossible to climb them. Wilson 

 has very properly said that the noise of the old and young in one of 

 these breeding-places would induce one to suppose that two or three 

 hundred Indians were choking or throttling each other. The same 

 5 BIRDS. 



