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or reeds. I never recollect to have seen one standing boldly out on the edge of the water as the 

 common Heron so frequently does, but have flushed them when making my way quietly through 

 the reeds and herbage that grows so luxuriously in the swampy and marshy places. It is a 

 lighter, smaller, and rather more graceful bird than the common Heron ; but in its usual mode 

 of progression, both on foot and on the wing, it much resembles that species. It is most active 

 during the early morning and in the evening, remaining quiet during the middle of the day, but 

 altogether it is much less active and more sluggish than Ardea cinerea. When resting and 

 dozing during the day-time it sits in a most peculiar position, in which it may be compared to 

 an old pointed brown post sticking in the ground. It sits mainly on its hinder quarters, resting 

 on those and the hinder part of the tarsus (not on the foot) ; and the body and neck are stuck in 

 an almost upright position. Naumann (taf. 221. fig. 2) gives an excellent illustration of the bird 

 sitting in this awkward-looking posture, as it is said almost always to do when it is at rest. It is 

 a bird much more seldom seen, even where it is numerous, than the common Heron, chiefly on 

 account of its secretive habits ; but it gets attached to a place which it has once got to like, and 

 will remain there as long as it is left in peace. It walks with deliberate, slow steps ; and its long 

 toes enable it to walk with comparative ease on the floating masses of aquatic herbage which are 

 so often seen in the portions of the marshes which are covered with water. It feeds on small 

 fish of various kinds, in search of which it does not usually select the clear water, but fishes in 

 even the smaller puddles in marshy places which afford it plenty of cover. It is stated to devour 

 large numbers of young green frogs (Bana esculenta), which are extremely numerous in some 

 places; and Naumann names that they will occasionally eat mice, and likewise feed on large 

 and small water-insects and their larvae. It never seeks after food in open places, but always 

 where the cover of reeds or flags is tolerably dense. 



Its voice is not unlike that of the common Heron, but is much lower in tone ; and Naumann 

 very aptly compares it, when heard at some distance, to the note or cry of the Wild Duck 

 (Anas boschas). Its voice, however, is heard but comparatively seldom, and then when it is on 

 the wing. 



Unlike the common Heron it seldom perches on a tree, and then never on the top in open 

 view, but in the lower branches, where it is, to some extent, hidden by the foliage. Nor does it 

 select a tree for the purpose of nidification, but it places its nest, like that of a Bittern, on the 

 ground in marshy, usually treeless, localities, or very frequently on the floating islands of tangled 

 aquatic herbage ; or else a platform is formed, on which the nest is placed, by treading down the 

 rushes and flags until they form a support. Colonel Irby, who found it breeding near Gibraltar, 

 says that " the nests vary much in size, and consisting merely of a few dried rushes collected 

 together so as to form a sort of platform just clear of the water, are generally twenty or thirty 

 yards apart. These Herons commence to lay about the 13th of April, as a rule depositing three 

 eggs (rarely four), as the following few instances of nests taken and seen will show : — on the 

 21st of April two nests — one with four, one with three eggs, all fresh ; on the 6th of May two 

 nests — one with three fresh eggs, the other with three eggs hard sat on." Mr. Ayres, also 

 describing its nests found by him in South Africa, writes (Ibis, 1869, p. 302) as follows: — " This 

 Heron chooses for its breeding-place a secluded reedy swamp. The nest is placed some few feet 

 above the water (which is frequently out of one's depth), on reeds bent down by the bird so as to 



