OPEN NESTS 143 



are built as many as four miles inland. I may 

 here remark that I shall have occasion to notice 

 several more of these mud made nests belonging to 

 very distantly related orders, as the review of open 

 nests progresses. 



The nests of that order of birds which includes the 

 Herons, the Storks, Ibises, and so forth (Pelargiformes), 

 come next under consideration. These are generally 

 large structures, built in a variety of situations rang- 

 ing from the ground to the branches of trees and the 

 ledges of precipices. These birds naturally divide 

 themselves into a number of groups, the nests in 

 which are more or less different and characteristic. 

 We will now proceed to describe a representative 

 selection from these. It should be mentioned, how- 

 ever, that many species in this order build several 

 types of nest according to the site in which it is 

 placed, the birds accommodating themselves to cir- 

 cumstances in the usual manner, and evincing an 

 amount of intelligence in the construction of their 

 utilitarian cradles. Thus the Purple Heron (Ardea 

 purpurea), when it breeds in trees, makes a large open 

 nest of sticks, but when in reed beds the nest is built 

 upon a trodden-down mass of aquatic vegetation, and 

 is chiefly composed of broken bits of reed and similar 

 plant fragments gathered from the marshes around. 

 The typical nest made by a Heron in a tree usually 

 consists of a bulky flat mass of interlaced branches 

 and twigs, the slight hollow in the centre occasionally 



