BROOK TROUT 



Chief among the destroyers of fish are certain birds 

 and winged insects. The common crow, the crow 

 blackbird, hawks, bluejay, some owls, grebes, gulls, and 

 terns, have the reputation of poaching to some extent, 

 but their depredations are much less in our State than 

 the ravages of such birds, for example, as the herons, 

 kingfisher, certain ducks, loons, and fish-hawk. Chief 

 among these is the 



Night-heron. 



In the report of the Pennsylvania Fish Commission 

 for 1897 Dr. B. H. Warren publishes some interesting 

 notes on the destructive work of the black-crown night- 

 heron. In a small pool at Westchester, Pa., twenty- 

 five goldfish were placed. Two night-herons caught 

 all but one of them before the following morning. A 

 night-heron killed near a branch of White Clay Creek, 

 in Pennsylvania, had the tail of a common sucker of 

 about twelve inches long projecting four inches beyond 

 its bill. The head and shoulders, except the bony por- 

 tion, were eaten away by the gastric juice of the stom- 

 ach. Dr. Warren examined the stomachs of about 

 twenty of these herons which were shot in June near 

 their breeding-ground, and found fish remains in all 

 of them. 



In July, 1883, Dr. Rudolph Hessel shot a night- 

 heron containing the heads of seventy-eight young 

 carp. This bird is sometimes called blue heron, and is 

 also quite generally called a crane, but this is erroneous. 



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