BLUE HERON. 151 



instance above mentioned, I found the birds remarkably gentle, which was 

 probably owing to fatigue. 



The Blue Heron breeds earlier or later according to the temperature of 

 the district to which it resorts for that purpose, and therefore earlier in 

 Florida, where considerable numbers remain, during the whole year, than in 

 other parts of the United States. Thus I have found them in the southern 

 parts of that country, sitting on their eggs, on the 1st of March, fully a 

 month earlier than in the vicinity of Bayou Sara, on the Mississippi, where 

 they are as much in advance of those which betake themselves, in very 

 small numbers indeed, to our Middle Districts, in which they rarely begin 

 to breed before the fifteenth of May. 



The situations which they choose for their nests are exceedingly varied. 

 I have found them sitting on their eggs on the Florida Keys, and on the 

 islands in the Bay of Galveston, in Texas, in nests placed amidst and upon 

 the most tangled cactuses, so abundant on those curious isles, on the latter 

 of which the climbing rattlesnake often gorges itself with the eggs of this 

 and other species of Heron, as well as with their unfledged young. In the 

 lower parts of Louisiana, it breeds on low bushes of the water-willow, as it 

 also does in South Carolina; w T hereas, on the islands on the coast of New 

 Jersey, and -even on the mainland of that State, it places its nest on the 

 branches of the cedar and other suitable trees. Wherever you find its 

 breeding place, you may expect to see other birds in company with it, for 

 like all other species, excepting perhaps the Louisiana Heron, it rarely 

 objects to admit into its society the Night Heron, the Yellow-crowned 

 Heron, or the White Egret. 



The heronries of the southern portions of the United States are often of 

 such extraordinary size as to astonish the passing traveller. I confess that I 

 myself might have been as sceptical on this point as some who, having been 

 accustomed to find in all places the Heron to be a solitary bird, cannot be 

 prevailed on to believe the contrary, had I not seen with my own eyes the 

 vast multitudes of individuals of different species breeding together in peace 

 in certain favourable localities. 



The nest of the Blue Heron, wherever situated, is loosely formed of dry 

 sticks, sometimes intermixed with green leaves of various trees, and with 

 grass or moss, according as these materials happen to be plentiful in the 

 neighbourhood. It is nearly flat, and can scarcely be said to have a regular 

 lining. Sometimes you see a solitary nest fixed on a cactus, a bush, or a 

 tree; but a little beyond this you may observe from six to ten, placed almost 

 as closely together as you would have put them had you measured out the 

 space necessary for containing them. Some are seen low over the water, 



