100 BIRDS OF NORTH CAROLINA 



the bodies of two slaughtered Audubon wardens, and into the last colonies of the 

 doomed birds. The butchery of the Egrets has been particularly harrowing because 

 of the fact that the birds have the plumes only during the nesting period, and to 

 kill an Egret for its feathers means the starvation of its brood. 



We know of only one colony of Egrets now in North Carolina; this is located in 

 Brunswick County and is carefully protected by Mr. James Sprunt, on whose prop- 

 erty it is situated. We have visited the birds during the nesting period seven differ- 

 ent times within the past twelve years, and have found them just about holding 

 their own in numbers. The colony contained probably twenty pairs when discov- 

 ered by Pearson in the summer of 1898. Their nests were high up in tall cypress 

 trees. The lowest one discovered was at least forty feet and others were fully eighty 

 feet above the water. Pearson also saw two nests with the birds attending them in 

 a small colony on Jones's Mill Pond in Carteret County, June, 1899. Later in 

 the season the place was raided by plume-hunters and the birds were killed. Indi- 

 viduals have occasionally been seen elsewhere in the State during the past twenty 

 years. From six to twelve birds are still seen each summer on Lake Ellis. One was 

 killed at Raleigh, June 15, 1884, and another shot at Chapel Hill in 1894. Two 

 were also recorded by Bishop at Pea Island, July 30 and August 19, 1904. Francis 

 Harper found a few breeding birds in a colony near Beaufort in July, 1913. 



Genus Egretta (T. Forst.) 

 81. Egretta candidissima candidissima (Gmel.). SNOWY EGRET. 



Ads. in breeding plumage. Entire plumage pure white; about fifty recurved "aigrette" 

 plumes grow from the interscapular region and reach to or just beyond the end of the tail; 

 legs black, feet yellow, bill black, yellow at the base; lores orange-yellow. Ads. after the breeding 

 season and Im. Without the interscapular plumes. L., 24.00; W., 9.75; Tar., 3.80; B., 3.20. 

 (Chap., Birds of E. N. A.) 



Range. Breeds from southern North Carolina southward; winters from Florida southward 

 to South America. 



Range in North Carolina. Coastal region in summer; now very rare. 



The fate of the small Snowy Egret is scarcely less sad than that of the large 

 Egret. In fact, today it is decidedly the rarer bird. This is the heron from which 

 comes the short curved plumes known to the millinery trade as " cross aigrettes." 

 Like other herons, these birds assemble in colonies upon the approach of the breed- 

 ing season, and to find one nesting place means finding all the birds of the species 

 which are breeding in a surrounding area of many miles. The one colony of herons 

 of the first magnitude still remaining in the State is at Crane Neck on the Orton 

 Plantation in Brunswick County. It is situated in a growth of cypress trees 

 in a little bay in the old rice-pond. Here it is believed the Snowy Egret is making 

 its last stand in North Carolina. Ten or twelve pairs were found there by H. H. 

 Brimley and Pearson in June, 1908. The nests were scattered among those of other 

 small herons, and the resemblance both of the nests and eggs was such that we 

 found it impossible to identify them positively except in the few instances when the 

 birds were actually seen occupying their nests. 



Records of the Snowy Herons appearing in other parts of the State are few, and 

 several of these are dubious. Coues regarded the bird as a summer resident at 



