A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of the Audubon Societies 



Vol. X 



March — April, 1908 



No. 2 



The Home-Life of the American Egret 



By FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



With photographs by the author* 



T 



^WENTY years have passed 

 since I saw in Flor/da my first 

 Egret, but I retain a clear-cut 

 mental picture of the scene in which 

 the bird's snowy plumage shone against 

 a darkly wooded background with 

 surprising whiteness. It seemed an 

 ethereal creature, too pure for earthly 

 existence, a veritable Bird of Paradise. 

 Nor has subsequent familiarity in any 

 way decreased this impression of a 

 certain angelic quality, — due no doubt 

 to the dazzling purity of the bird's 

 plumage as well as to the charm of 

 its haunts. 



It was the large Egret (Herodias 

 egretta) I saw. The Snowy Egret 

 (Egretta candidissima) is a daintier, 

 more exquisite bird, but, in nature, 

 cannot always be satisfactorily distin- 

 guished from the young of the abundant 

 Little Blue Heron, while its much smaller size makes it a far less impressive 

 figure in the landscape than its stately relative. Furthermore, the Snowy 

 Egret's recurved plumes are more highly prized than the long, straight 'Aigret- 

 tes' of the larger species, and even twenty years ago, it was a comparatively 

 rare bird in Florida. Today it is on the verge of extinction. 



My experiences, therefore, have been with the larger Egret. Long have 

 I sought to find it at home under conditions suitable for reproduction in the 



*See, also, Photographs in Bird-Lore for December, 1007. 



GRAVELY THE PARENT STOOD 

 REGARDING ITS YOUNG" 



