150 BLUE HERON. 



shores to avoid danger, whether at an early or a late hour of the day. I 

 recollect that once, on such an occasion, when, on the 15th of March, I was 

 in company with my friend John Bachman, I saw a large flock about sun- 

 set arising from across the river, and circling over a large pond, eight miles 

 distant from Charleston. So cautious were they, that although the flock was 

 composed of saveral hundred individuals, we could not manage to get so 

 much as a chance of killing one. I have been surprised to see how soon the 

 Blue Herons become shy after reaching the districts to which they remove 

 for the purpose of breeding from their great rendezvous the Floridas, where 

 I never experienced any difficulty in procuring as many as I wished. In 

 Louisiana, on the other hand, I have found them equally vigilant on their 

 first arrival. On several occasions, when I had placed myself under cover, 

 to shoot at some, while on their way to their roosts or to their feeding 

 grounds, I found it necessary to shift from one place to another, for if one 

 of them had been fired at and had fallen in a particular place, all that were 

 in its company took care not to pass again near it, but when coming up 

 diverged several hundred yards, and increased their speed until past, when 

 they would assume their more leisurely flappings. In South Carolina, where 

 they are very shy on their arrival, I have seen them fly off on hearing the 

 very distant report of a gun, and alight on the tops of the tallest trees, 

 where they would congregate in hundreds, and whence they would again fly 

 off on the least apprehension of danger. But when once these Herons have 

 chosen a place to nestle in, or reached one in which they bred the preceding 

 fear, they become so tame as to allow you to shoot as many as you are dis- 

 posed to have. 



While on Cayo Island, in the Gulf of Mexico, on the 10th of April, 1837, 

 I observed large flocks of the Blue and Green Herons, Ardea ccerulea and 

 Ji. virescens, arriving from the westward about the middle of the day. 

 They flew at a considerable height, and came down like so many Hawks, to 

 alight on the low bushes growing around the sequestered ponds; and this 

 without any other noise than the rustling of their wings as they glided 

 through the air towards the spot on which they at once alighted. There 

 they remained until sunset, when they all flew off, so that none were seen 

 there next day. This shews that although these species migrate both by 

 day and night, they are quite diurnal during the period of their residence in 

 any section of the country which they may have chosen for a season. It is 

 more than probable that it has been from want of personal knowledge of the 

 habits of these birds, that authors have asserted that all Herons are noctur- 

 nally inclined. This certainly is by no means the case, although they find 

 it advantageous to travel by night during their migrations, which is a 

 remarkable circumstance as opposed to their ordinary habits. In the 



