232 . BIRDS 



see in the Northern states and Canada, it is about a foot 

 and a half long, larger than any bird, except one of its own 

 cousins, that you are likely to see in its marshy haunts. 



{See plates, pages, 226-227.) 



Unlike many of their kind a pair of these herons prefer 

 to build their rickety nests apart, rather than in one of those 

 large, sociable, noisy, and noisome colonies which we as- 

 sociate with the heron tribe. Flocking is often a fatal 

 custom. 



Alijiost the last snowy heron and white egret, that form- 

 erly lived in large colonies, had yielded their bodies to the 

 knife of the plume hunter before the law protected them. 

 Inasmuch as all young herons depended upon their parents 

 through an unusually long, helpless infancy, the httle 

 orphans were left to die by starvation, that the unthinking 

 heads of vain women might be decked out with aigrettes! 

 Don't blame the poor hunters too much when the plumes 

 were worth their weight in gold. Now, thanks to the 

 activity of the Audubon Societies, not a woman in America 

 dares wear an aigrette nor a bird-of-paradise plume. 



The Bittern 



Length — ^Varies from 24 to 34 inches. 



Male and Female — Subcrested; upper parts freckled with 

 shades of brown, blackish, buflf, and whitish; top of head 

 and back of neck slate color, with a yellow brown wash; 

 a black streak on sides of neck; chin and throat white, 

 with a few brown streaks; under parts pale buflf, striped 

 with brown; head flat. Bill yellow, rather stout, and 

 sharply pointed; tail small and rounded; legs long and 

 olive colored. 



