AEDBA. 



233 



Ardea cinerea, Linn. The Common Heron. 



Ardea cinerea, Linn., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 741 ; Hwme, Rouyh Draft 

 N. 8( E. no. 923. 



The Common Heron breeds throughout India wherever there is 

 any water and suitable feeding-ground in the neighbourhood, alike 

 in the plains and in the hills to an elevation of 4000 to 5000 feet. 

 It breeds at very various seasons, and may very possibly have two 

 broods here in the year, but too little is as yet on record about its 

 nidification in India to enable me to speak positively. 



In Etawah 1 have taken numbers of its eggs in the latter por- 

 tion of July and in August, and I have had eggs sent me from 

 Hansie taken in March and April, and from Saugor taken in April 

 and June. 



As far as my experience goes, this species always builds on trees. 

 I have never yet found its nest in reed-beds, which the Purple 

 Heron preferentially affects for nidificatioD. 



The nest is a large loose irregular platform of moderately thick 

 sticks and twigs, with a tolerably deep central depression, v\hicli, 

 though often quite unlined, is more often I think thinly lined with 

 grass. 



Sometimes, when laying in March and April, they build in a 

 small party by themselves ; but more generally, J think, they lay in 

 India during the rainy season, and then their nests will be found 

 as a rule on trees, in amongst scores of nests of the Pond-Heron, 

 large White Egrets and White Ibises. 



At home I have more often, I think, found four than three eggs 

 in Herons' nests, but in this country out of certainly fifty that I 

 have examined I never chanced to meet with more than three. 



Mr. W. Blewitt sent me a number of eggs of this bird and 

 remarked:—"! have found five nests in the neighbourhood of 

 Hansie this year between the 26th and 29th March, each containing 

 two or three fresh eggs. The nests were all on peepul and burgot 

 trees from twenty to twenty-five feet from the ground, and were 

 shallow platforms some 12 to 15 inches in diameter, and 3 or 4 

 inches in depth, constructed rather loosely of keekur twigs and 

 lined with a little straw." 



Next year he wrote : — " I have only found two of the Common 

 Herons' nests this year, and both on the 14th April ; each con- 

 tained three fresh eggs. 



"The nests, which measured about 14 inches in diameter and 

 about 5 inches in depth, were loosely built of keekur and sheeshum 

 twigs and scantily lined with straw and leaves. The one was placed 

 on a peepul, the other on a burgot tree, and both were at a height 

 of about t« enty-five feet from the ground." 



Major C. T. Bingham writes : — " I found this bird breeding near 

 Delhi at the end of M arch. There were some tv\ enty nests on large 

 trees in and about the village of Burari on the Jumna. I only 

 managed to procure two eggs and these hard-set ; the rest of the 

 nests contained young. The nests were mere platforms of sticks.'' 



