140 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



in each direction. The nests were all of the same pattern, great 

 cumbersome piles of sticks, about a foot thick, with but a very shallow 

 cavity and no lining." 



The heronry on Riding mountain, Man., is thus described by Mr. 

 E. Thompson Seton : — 



"We had struck a heronry; hundreds of these birds were passing 

 to and fro, and, on going forward a hundred yards or so, we found 

 the tops of the poplars covered with their nests; the young birds, 

 full grown but not able to fly, perched on the highest trees. The 

 nests were made of the small dead branches of the poplar and were 

 placed as near the tops of the trees as possible. These mountains 

 are full of small ponds and deep marshes which swarm with 

 lizards and small fish, on which the herons feed. On getting to an 

 open space near the heronry we could see the old birds coming and 

 going in every direction. Those coming home were stuffed to 

 the bill with food for their young, making them present a very 

 ungainly figure, as they lazily flapped their way towards the 

 woods." 



In May, 1898, a small heronry was found in a birch grove near 

 one of the Gaspereaux lakes in Nova Scotia. The nests, to the number 

 of five within the space of one acre, were inaccessible owing to the 

 great size and nature of the trees selected for the nests. {H. F. 

 Tufts.) 



A few years ago this speci'es bred in the township of Escott, Ont., 

 and some of the old nests were still left in 1895. In the next town- 

 ship — ^Yonge — 2l few birds still breed near Macintosh Mills, and 

 their nests may be noticed on some tall pine trees. A large heronry 

 existed in a bush near the River Tay, Lanark county, in 1885. 

 The nests were built mostly on ash trees, three or four nests often 

 in one tree. It still breeds in the township of Elizabethtown, where 

 there is a large heronry near Graham lake. Two sets of eggs, five 

 of each, were taken from this heronry on May 6th, 1899. {Rev. C. J. 

 Young.) In The Ottawa Naturalist, Vol. ^VIIl, p. 119, Rev. G. 

 Eifrig gives a very full description of a heronry near Eganville, 

 Renfrew county, Ont. There were between 50 and 100 nests all 

 in swamp elms, 30 to 50 feet from the ground. 



In Muskoka, Ont., they build in tall pine trees. One tree on 

 an island in a lake about twelve miles from Bracebridge had between 



