74 



ORNITHOLOGIST 



[Vol. 12-No. 5 



flying after dark. During the morning he 

 would come to the door and wait for his 

 breakfast, following any one of the family and 

 calling loudly for his food. After eating he 

 would take a position on a fence post, or limb 

 of a ti-ee, standing on one leg with his head 

 drawn close down to his shoulders, as motion- 

 less as a statue ; but should he not get enough 

 to satisfy his hunger he was active and restless ; 

 he would then follow the cat into the kitchen 

 if she had a mouse and watch her to see if she 

 would lay it before her kitten, should she do so 

 he would snatch it and fiy off to his tub of wa- 

 ter, soak it and swallow it whole. He would 

 even go to the kitten's box, turn over the bed 

 to look for mice, as the mother cat would some- 

 times hide them there, as she supposed from 

 Jack. 



He often spent longing hours over some 

 young quail I had in a wire enclosure. Occas- 

 ionally he would fall in love with a young 

 chicken, and one day when a little neglected, 

 he swallowed a half grown bantam, so large 

 for his stomach that he could not down the 

 legs, as he rested on a post with the bird's feet 

 sticking out of his mouth till the body digested 

 sufliciently for the feet to follow. His appe- 

 tite was not one of the daintiest, especially if 

 fish was on the bill of fare. At one meal he 

 once swallowed nine large smelts. 



One thing worth noting was his perfect fear- 

 lessness of cats and dogs. At times, when 

 basking in the sun a dog would run up to him ; 

 he kept perfectly motionless till the dog came 

 close enough, when he would strike at his face 

 with such effect as to astonish the dog, who 

 would immediately give Jack a wide berth 

 afterwards, in consideration of retaining his 

 eyesight. He would never let a chance slip 

 at our own dog or cat should they pass 

 close enough for Jack to get a poke at their 

 sides. 



He preferred to sleep on the tree all winter, 

 not showing the least appearance of suffering 

 from cold in the severest weather. He fed 

 freely from our hands and was fond of being 

 noticed by any of the family, answering by a 

 nquarh- when spoken to, and would follow us 

 all over the place. 



When spring came, Jack wanted to build a 

 nest and carried up a lot of sticks into his tree 

 and made a platform of them but did not finish 

 the nest. During the next September, after 

 having had him tifteen months, another Heron 

 probably the same that left us, visited him 

 nightly for several weeks, alighting by the 

 pond and calUug his well-known squark. One 



morning Jack was missing and we heard no 

 more of them. 



The following summer a Night Heron, (no 

 doubt the same Jack) aligted on ray barn roof 

 in company with a young one only half grown, 

 to the great consternation of the poultry which 

 from their shouts of alarm called my attention 

 to the Herons. The old bird flew down to the 

 little pond in the poultry yard followed by the 

 young one, which it left there, seemingly to 

 shift for itself, as it stayed there several weeks 

 till full grown. To our delight the old bird 

 occasionally visited it, and when he flew over 

 would always answer when we called Jack. 

 The young bird was so tame that if he was 

 disturbed he would merely fly into a tree that 

 overhung the pond and wait till all was quiet 

 and then resume his position in the edge of the 

 pond watching for frOgs. The next year the 

 old bird repeated the same thing, bringing 

 another young one, but the pond drying up in 

 about a week after, the young one left. The 

 next fall I filled up the pond as a sanitary 

 measure and the next summer saw no more 

 of the Herons. 



Several things are worth noting in this affair. 

 In the first place, if it was merely a question of 

 food, the further pond offered greater induce- 

 ments ; was it a matter of protection or force 

 of habit, or both, that induced the bird to quar- 

 ter his young one in the yard? No wild Heron 

 would light on a barn and then fly to the pond 

 so near buildings and surrounded by lots of 

 poultry, but no ducks. The poultry did not 

 trouble him, as he waded far enough from the 

 edge to be out of their way. 



Another singular thing was the remarkable 

 tameness and contented manner of the young 

 birds in stopping there, for while attending to 

 the young chickens, one was very often near 

 the pond. Is this a habit of the species, taking 

 their young, only half grown, to a place suita- 

 ble for them to find their own food and shift 

 for themselves? If this is generally the case, 

 it is a singular habit worth noticing. 



Wiles of the Peregrine Falcon. 



BY W. C. AVKRV, M. I)., GKEENSBORO, AL. 



While shooting one day, as I entered a large 

 field, my attention was attracted to a flock of 

 Killdeer, flying high over head. They were as 

 noisy as usual and flew in different directions, 

 as if they had been disturbed and scattered. 



Far below the Killdeers, came rapidly tow- 



