668 REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



Mr. Eobert Ridgway says: "At Monteur's Pond, about eight miles 

 east of Vincennes, Ind., it is the most numerous species of Heron, far 

 outnumbering all other kinds together, during several visits there in 

 different years." (Birds of 111., Vol. II, p. 136.) In an account of a 

 visit to the locality above mentioned in the spring of 1881, the same 

 writer noted "a colony of perhaps a hundred pairs having their nests 

 among the tall ash and sweet-gum trees, in a creek bottom, near the 

 edge of the pond." The nests are mostly at a considerable height, and 

 few of them are readily accessible. They were just beginning to lay, 

 and were frightened away from the locality during a Vet spelP by 

 squirrel hunters. A female was shot from her nest April 27, and a 

 perfect egg cut from her oviduct. Several fine specimens of the bird 

 were secured, and it was noticed that the delicate, almost luminous, 

 yellow buff on the forehead soon faded." (Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club, 

 Jan., 1882, p. 22.) 



"In an .adult female shot from her nest at Wheatland, Ind., April 

 27, 1881, the bill and naked lores were wholly slate-black, the eyelids 

 similar, but tinged with green anteriorly; iris, mars-orange; legs, pale 

 olive-buff; the large scutellag of tarsus, and toes deep brownish." In 

 the adult male in spring, according to Audubon, the unf eathered parts 

 are colored as follows: "Bill, black; iris, reddish-orange; margins of 

 eyelids and bare space in front of the eye, dull yellowish-green; tibia, 

 upper part of the tarsus, its hind part, and the soles, bright yellow; 

 the scutellae and scales, the fore part of the tarsus, the toes, and the 

 claws, black." (Ridgway, Birds of 111., Vol. II, p. 136.) 



This species is perhaps a little later migrating than that last men- 

 tioned. The colony noted is the most northern known of this 

 Heron. It, too, goes by the same name in some localities as the other 

 Night Heron, "Squawk." They are said usually to build in pairs, and 

 to be less nocturnal than the other species. 



