368 COMMON HERON. 
very large heronry at Ecury-le-grand, near Champigneul, in Marne ; 
while scattered pairs are found in many districts. Migrants bearing 
the labels of the Loo Hawking Club, Holland, have been shot from 
time to time near Perpignan. To the Spanish Peninsula, the Azores, 
Madeira, the Canaries, the Mediterranean basin, Africa as far as 
Cape Colony, Ascension Island, the islands of the Indian Ocean, 
and Australia, the Heron is either a winter-visitor or a wanderer ; 
but it breeds throughout Asia, from about 60° N. down to Ceylon. 
In January, if the season is very mild in England, but as a rule in 
February, Herons resort to their breeding-places, and these are often 
occupied for years in’ succession ; while, like the Rooks, in whose 
vicinity they often build, they usually nest in company. According 
to circumstances they avail themselves of high trees, precipitous 
sea-cliffs, crags covered with ivy and shrubs, bare hill-sides, the walls 
of ruins, the level ground, low bushes, or reeds and bull-rushes. 
The nest is flat, rather broad, and formed of sticks, with a lining of 
small twigs, roots and dry grass; the 3-4 eggs are uniform bluish- 
green: measurements 2°5 by 1°7in. Incubation lasts 25-26 days 
(W. Evans); and a second clutch of eggs is sometimes laid while the 
first brood is still in the nest. Heronries are occupied from spring 
to August, and are occasionally visited in the winter, but except 
in the breeding-season the bird is often solitary and shy. The 
food consists of reptiles, molluscs, crustaceans, worms, insects, small 
mammals—such as water-rats and field-mice, and still more largely 
of eels, pike, flounders and other coarse fish, but trout and the 
young of water-fowl are not despised. Young Herons are helpless 
for some time after they are hatched ; when fledged they are good 
eating, and were formerly esteemed for the table. The alarm-note 
is a loud frank, frank, which is especially startling to other birds, 
but at the nest it is a prolonged 4zonk or kraak. When flying, this 
species is easily recognized by the slow flapping of its rounded wings. 
The adult male has the crest bluish-black; upper parts chiefly slate- 
grey ; forehead, cheeks and neck white, the last being streaked with 
dark bluish-grey and terminating in long white feathers ; under parts 
greyish-white ; bill yellow. Length 36 in.; wing 17°25 in. The 
female is smaller, and her colours are less bright, while the plumes 
are shorter, as they are also in the young birds ; in the latter the under 
parts are ash-colour, and there are no long feathers at the bottom of 
the neck. Varieties are sometimes obtained. 
The members of this family have the breast and lower flanks 
furnished with well-developed powdery tufts of decomposed feathers, 
the use of which is not known. 
