10 NORTH AMERICAN HERONS AND THEIR ALLIES. 



yet the great majority retire at this season to more genial climes. 

 Those breeding north of the Gulf States are almost completely migra- 

 tory, though occasionally a bittern, a great blue heron, or a black- 

 crowned night heron elects to spend the winter where large swamps 

 or warm springs offer a precarious livelihood far north of the 

 freezing line. 



The most striking peculiarity of the migrations of the herons is 

 their northward movement in the fall. Though not universal, yet 

 it is a common habit for the young herons to wander in the late 

 summer and early fall long distances, even several hundred miles, 

 north of the district where they were hatched. They remain from 

 a week to a month at their picnic grounds and finally depart for 

 their winter home. 



A still more remarkable migration habit is that of the snowy egret. 

 Numbers of these birds migrate in the spring far north of the 

 breeding range and remain throughout the summer in these northern 

 districts as nonbreeders. The birds are, of course, adults, and some- 

 times they are found during the summer 500 to 1,000 miles north 

 of the nearest known breeding grounds of the species. This habit 

 of the snowy egret seems not to be shared by any other North 

 American species. 



The data in this bulletin on the distribution and breeding of the 

 several species have been obtained largely from the printed records 

 in ornithological literature. The extended migration tables are made 

 possible by the reports of many hundred observers who have filled 

 out migration schedules for the Biological Survey. Occasion is 

 taken herewith to extend to these observers well-merited thanks for 

 their painstaking care and for the large amount of time they have 

 devoted to the study of bird movements. 



NORTH AMERICAN HERONS AND THEIR ALLIES. 



Flamingo. Pltocnicopterus ruber Linnfeus. 



Range. — Florida. Yucatan, and the Bahamas, and southeast through 

 the West Indies to Venezuela, the mouth of the Amazon, and the 

 Galapagos ; accidental in South Carolina and Louisiana. 



Breeding range. — The flamingo is not a migrant in the ordinary 

 sense of the word, and its occurrence outside of the breeding range 

 is due to its wandering into contiguous regions in search of food. 

 The species nested formerly among the keys of southern Florida 

 in the vicinity of Indian Key (Audubon), and Cape Sable (Scott), 

 but was driven away many years ago, and there seems to be no 

 certain record of breeding in Florida during the past 20 years. 



The principal breeding range seems to have been the Bahamas, 

 which furnished in abundance the peculiar natural conditions re- 



