The American Egret 



— I 



■Mm 



BKBSH8B8RK.-- :38RMNmWI 



Taken in Imperial Valley 



Photo by the Author 



A VIEW OF THE LOWER COLORADO VALLEY 



LOOKING ACROSS INTO ARIZONA" A FAVORITE WINTER RANGE OF THE EGRETS 



during the period of maximum depression, say during the first decade of 

 the present century, stragglers were occasionally noted both in winter and 

 in summer. Linton believed that there was a small colony nesting at 

 Buena Vista Lake in the summer of 1908. * Willett says: 2 "During the 

 last ten years I have seen three or four birds in the marshes of Los Angeles 

 and Orange Counties." During the period of slow recovery, say from 

 1910 on, scattered individuals have been noted with such frequency that 

 occurrences are no longer considered worthy of record. At Santa Barbara 

 we count on seeing at least one bird every winter, though I have never 

 seen more than four at once. In the winter of 1913 I had the privilege 

 of seeing a "large" company of Egrets in the heavily wooded backwater 

 of the Laguna Dam at Potholes. In the center of the lagoon, where the 

 dead Cottonwood timber was thickest, they had established a sort of 

 noonday rest camp. On the 8th of February, from the vantage of a 

 treetop, I counted twenty-eight birds as they filed into camp, besides a 

 little Snowy Heron who acted as file-closer. I felt as one who had gazed 

 upon the bivouac of Diana and her huntresses. And for myself I would 

 as lief shoot into a flock of goddesses as to molest these snowy splendors. 

 Oh, the unutterable hunnishness of the traffic which brought our angels 

 of the swamp to such a pass! 



1 Pac. Coast Avifauna, No. 7 (191 2), p. 31. 



2 Ibid. 



/poo 



