1921] . SHROSBREE, NEW SERIES OF BIRD GROUPS. 31 



I picked him up and carried him home, gave him a dose of castor oil, and 

 then a hot hath which caused him to vomit. By the following morning 

 he seemed to have fully recovered. The discomfiture, like that of the 

 young heron, was prohahly caused hy the poison exuded by the toad as 

 a natural means of defense. 



One remarkably fine heron's nest, situated about eighty feet up was 

 so placed that Mr. Stoddard found it impossible to reach, but he was 

 able to see that it contained some very young herons, which he decided 

 to secure. After tieing a rope to the main limb supporting the nest, then 

 tieing the other end to the main trunk, he sawed through the limb and 

 lowered it to the ground. The nest turned upside down and the young 

 birds fell about eighty feet to the ground. I stood ofif at a distance, but 

 close enough to see where the young birds landed. To our surprise the 

 birds appeared to be unhurt, and soon opened their mouths to be fed. 

 When the nest was lowered to the ground it was found to be in perfect 

 condition and not in the least dislodged from its position on the limb. 



After taking care of all the specimens, we packed and expressed them 

 to Milwaukee and then made our way to Prairie du Sac, which was to 

 be our headquarters for the remainder of the work. Arriving at Prairie 

 du Sac. Mr. Stoddard made another visit to the Double-crested Cormor- 

 ant colony, sixteen miles up the Wisconsin river, but found that the 

 young were not yet hatched. We then proceeded on our way to the 

 colony of Black-crowned Night Herons near Darlington, seventy-two 

 miles from Prairie du Sac, where Mr. Stoddard had previously obtained 

 permission to collect. When this permission was obtained and after ex- 

 amining some of the eggs, he could judge pretty closely the time the 

 young would hatch, as was shown by the condition of the colony when 

 we arrived. 



Mr. E. D. Ochsner of Prairie du Sac conveyed us to Darlington in 

 his Ford car, leaving Prairie du Sac at 6:00 A. M.. June 3rd, arriving 

 at Darlington at 9:30 A. M. By 6:00 P. M. we had secured practically 

 all the material for the group. At the time we reached the farm house 

 the farmer was away in the field, so we made known the object of our 

 visit to his wife, and proceeded to the woods. 



The birds, we found, had used very poor judgment in the selection 

 of a site, it being situated in the corner of a woods near the junction of 

 two roads, and the boys from the surrounding farms had visited the 

 colony and had shot many of the birds. However, we secured a suf- 

 ficient number of adult birds, young, eggs and nests to make a good 

 sized group. 



