14 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



in winter congregates into mucli larger flocks. It also mingles freely with other 

 species of Herons ; but its large size is always enough to distinguish it from its 

 congeners. It does not appear to frequent the most secluded and inaccessible 

 parts of the marshes and reed-beds so much as their borders. * * *. It often 

 wades for some distance in the water, and seems as partial to running streams as 

 to still lakes and ponds." 



The food of this species — which feeds chiefly in the day and in clear moon- 

 light nights — is much the same as that of the two which have been previously 

 described, fish, fish-fry, frogs, mice, rats, and water insects in their different 

 stages. It has been known, when in captivity, to snap up birds swooping 

 near its head. 



The Great White Heron is pure snowy white in all parts of its plumage. 

 It has no crest, though the feathers are lengthened on the occiput, but those on 

 the lower neck and on the pectoral region are narrow and much elongated, while 

 during the height of the pairing season the bird carries a magnificent train of long 

 feathery plumes which extend beyond the tail; the bare space round the eyes 

 is pale green, and the unfeathered part of the upper leg light coloured. There is 

 this curious fact about the bill, that in summer it is black, and in winter it 

 becomes yellow. In the two other — the American and the Chinese — species of 

 Great White Herons, the very opposite is the case, the bills are yellow in summer 

 and black in winter. During the latter season the species under description has no 

 great dorsal plumes, they begin to be shed after the breeding season, and are not 

 replaced till the next pairing. The female of Ardea alba is similar to its mate; 

 but its neck and back ornaments are less fully developed. 



Soon after their northward migration in the beginning of May, the Great 

 White Herons begin to build — which they do only once a year — or to repair the 

 nests they have frequented in former years. These as a rule are placed on trees 

 in an island or in a morass, or on the ground among thick reeds in some swampy 

 place. The nest is composed, when on a tree, of larger twigs lined with smaller 

 ones, or with fragments of reeds or flags; when on swampy ground, it is built 

 up with rushes and reeds. The nest, as Mr. Seebohm remarks, is broad and quite 

 flat, and by the time the young are able to fly, is so trodden about as only to 

 resemble a mere heap of sticks. It is a more sociable bird than the Common or 

 the Purple Heron, and builds in close companionship with not only its own species, 

 but with other Herodiones, and with unrelated species. During the month of 

 May or the first half of June, the Great White Heron lays from three to five 

 roundish eggs, which are quite indistinguishable from those of the Common 

 Heron. Early in July the young are hatched. When they are nearly fledged 



