Herons and Bitterns 



cypresses or other trees. Such colonies are still found as far north 

 as Pennsylvania and southern Illinois. A rich maroon brown 

 head and neck set off its bluish slate plumage, which is adorned 

 with lengthened pointed feathers on the breast and shoulders. 

 Immature birds are more confusing. At first they are white, or 

 white washed with slaty gray, the tips of the primaries always 

 remaining bluish slate, however, which enables one to tell them, 

 with the help of their greenish yellow legs, from the snowy herons 

 or egrets so often confused with them. Happily, the little blue 

 herons wear no aigrettes, or they would share the tragic fate of 

 the beauty of their family. 



" What does it cost, this garniture of death ? 



It costs the life which God alone can give ; 

 It costs dull silence where was music's breath ; 



It costs dead joy that foolish pride may live ; 

 Ah, life and joy and song, depend upon it, 

 Are costly trimmings for a woman's bonnet ! " 



Only a generation ago the Snowy Heron {Ardea candidissimd) 

 was so abundant the southern marshes fairly glistened with flocks, 

 as if piled with snow ; but all the trace of this exquisite bird now 

 left is in the aigrettes that, once worn as its wedding dress, to-day 

 wave above the unthinking brows of foolish women. In some 

 states there is a penalty attached to the shooting of this heron ; 

 but the plume hunters evade the law by cutting the flesh contain- 

 ing the aigrettes from the back of the living bird, that is left to die 

 in agony. Countless thousands of the particularly helpless fledge- 

 lings, suddenly orphaned, have slowly starved to death, and so 

 rapidly hastened the day when the extinction of the species must 

 end the sinful folly. 



Little Green Heron 



(Ardea virescens) 



Calledalso: POKE; CHUCKLE HEAD; CHALKLINE; FLY- 

 UP-THE-CREEK 



Length — 16 to i8 inches; smallest of the herons. 

 Male and Female — Lengthened crest and crown of head dark 

 green ; rest of receding head and neck chestnut red, shading 



164 



