90 NOTES ON THE 
should be added a long-continued practice of firing pistols at 
them from the steamers’ decks to see the females rise in clouds 
from their nests, and the robbing them of their eggs by men 
and boys by the employment of telegraph pole climbing irons 
to reach them, their numbers became so sensibly reduced as to 
call in special legislation, some five or six years since, or all 
would have been destroyed or driven entirely away. I have 
taken all measures within my reach to ascertain the area daily 
visited by the ‘‘cranes” and cormorants brooding and roosting 
in this group, and while not absolutely certain of the exact 
dimensions, I can safely say it covers a circle the diameter of 
which is not less than eighty miles. In England it is said that 
all roads lead to London, so when I see or hear of individuals of 
these species flying regularly from the direction of Minnetonka 
in the morning, until nearly nine o'clock, and after four in the 
afternoon till dark, towards it, uniformly, I conclude that they 
belong there. The nearest heronry to this of which I have 
any reliable knowledge is about 190 miles from here. They 
rear but one brood in a season here now, if ever they did before. © 
Their food is frogs, fish, snakes, mice, water beetles and slugs. 
From the 15th to the 20th of October they go away to the south 
in small flocks. 
There is another heronry somewhere in the southeastern 
part of the State, which I have not yet succeeded in locating, 
but I think it is somewhere perhaps in Dodge, Olmsted or 
Freeborn county. A large one has long been located in 
Douglas or Grant county, | am credibly informed by duck- 
hunters. In general their distribution is co-extensive with the 
State, yet there are considerable sections where they do not 
go on account of the deficiency of appropriate food. 
Mr. Washburn found them common throughout his explora- 
tions at Mille Lacs and in the different sections of the Red 
River valley. 
Mr. Lewis found it in nearly every place he visited in the 
north and western parts of the commonwealth. 
If intelligently cooked, the flesh of the entire Heron family 
is excellent eating, including the unprepossessing and most 
unpopular Bittern, as I can bear positive testimony, for by the 
courtesy of Mr. Wm. Tiffany I breakfasted with him upon it 
once many years ago. If there is anything which forever 
settles the question of man’s evolution from animals lower than 
the monkeys, it is the attainment of prejudices respecting his 
food. His employment of the imagination in the domains of 
