AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



223 



HABITS. 





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1 



HE heron family is an interesting 

 one, and one of the most interest- 

 ing of the family is the Black-crowned 

 Night Heron. They are more heav- 

 ily built birds than others of the 

 family, and have stouter bills, shorter 

 necks, and shorter but proportionaly 

 heavier legs. In common with most 

 of the herons, they are gregarious 

 and large colonies of them nest to- 

 gether in places called heronries. 



On any still night in summer you 

 are very apt to occasionly hear one 

 of these birds as he flies over. 

 Their note is a deep gutteral "qua" 

 or "quark"; this is repeated at inter- 

 vals of from four to six seconds when 

 the birds are flying at night. They 

 are very susceptable to even a crude 

 imitation of their note; when a boy 

 and living in a small town, I fre- 

 quently used to amuse myself evenings by calling the "Quarks" or 

 Night Herons. Waiting until I heard^one of the birds in the distance, 

 an answer to every one of his calls, would gradually bring him nearer 

 and nearer; at last his dark gray form would be visible through the 

 mist, and he would circle about several times, each circuit bringing 

 him nearer, until, unable to discover his relative, he would wing his 

 way out of sight. 



There are several heronries within a few miles of Worcester; they 

 are all small ones, the largest containing perhaps fifty or seventy-five 

 pairs. This one is located in a small patch of large pines, that is, it 

 was last spring. They have had to change their location nearly every 

 year because the woods have been cut off. A short drive through the 

 woods brings us in the neighborhood of the pines. All is silent and 

 not a bird is seen until we round the last bend before reaching the her- 

 onry. Then as the old birds see us, they begin to circle about uttering 

 angry "quas", and from the tree tops comes a strange sound, like the 

 magnified tickings of numerous "grandfather's clocks." This is the 

 characteristic noise made by the fledgling of the Night Heron. The 

 trees surround a small stagnant pond, from the shores of which, hun- 



