230 THE Birps Asout Us. 
light. It is both migratory and resident in the Mid- 
dle States, but the number that remain during the 
winter is comparatively small, and these overstaying 
birds are rather forlorn creatures if the weather is 
very cold. As they sit huddled together loosely 
wrapped in their feathers, with shoulders up and 
heads down and their bills quite out of sight, they 
might readily be mistaken for inanimate objects were 
it not that they have a very keen sense of hearing 
and move if you come very near the trees in which 
they are resting. That they appreciate warmth is 
shown by the fact that in winter these birds will feed 
at noon when the warm springs have a flood of 
noontide sunshine resting over them, and will stay 
at home during the night, this being reversed in 
moderate winter weather and during the summer. 
Early in May, in days gone by, these birds col- 
lected by hundreds at the heronries and nest building 
commenced; now single nests are usually found, al- 
though we often see ten or more birds togther about 
their feeding-grounds. In 1860 there was an enor- 
mous heronry near the Delaware River, where a large 
creek enters it in Burlington County, New Jersey. 
This was disturbed and the birds so harassed by boys 
stealing the eggs that early in the summer the spot 
was suddenly and entirely deserted, and since then, 
in that vicinity, the birds that still come year after 
year build their nests far apart, and seem in all their 
nesting habits to have instituted a complete change. 
The night-heron feeds principally upon fish, but 
has also a fancy for salamanders, for I have twice 
seen them on a wooded hill-side near the springs, 
