UO i ee eC a ee ee AT 
1876.] White Egrets at Trenton, New Jersey. 475 
that of rising to a very great height always when passing over 
woods, as was necessary on coming in from the river, along the 
banks of which they appeared to roost. While the less timid 
blue herons would pass leisurely along the tree-tops, not a dozen 
yards above them, the white herons on being disturbed would 
rise rapidly to an unusual height, and, apparently keeping directly 
over the spot where they had been standing, would not com- 
mence an onward flight until the upward one was sufficiently 
prolonged to assure them that they were wholly out of harm’s 
way. So when returning to the meadow they would, as it were, 
drop from the clouds, while the blue species would quietly wing 
their way along at a height of from ten to forty yards. 
Now, inasmuch as no white egrets have, in any numbers, vis- 
ited this locality for several years, and as in the Southern States 
they are little, if at all, more wary than the blue herons, it seems 
to me to follow necessarily that their peculiarity of flight, as 
instanced in avoiding supposed dangers, could not be hereditary, 
and was really an exercise of unusual care, forethought, on the 
part of these birds; a mental operation akin to thought in man, 
ra having nothing whatever to do with instinct as understood 
y us. P 
Why, indeed, a flock of these egrets, for nearly four weeks, 
should frequent daily a tract of meadow so small as this of seventy 
acres, it would be very difficult if not impossible to determine ; 
but such being the case, I naturally endeavored to mark their 
feeding habits carefully, and this, with the aid of a good field- 
ass, I was able to do. Their food consisted exclusively, while 
on the meadows, of frogs and grasshoppers, and especially of the 
latter, which were very abundant, and, having been caught by 
the freshet while in the long grass, were so wet and draggled 
that they could not escape by flight. The smaller herons seemed 
always occupied in gathering up the grasshoppers, and never 
Pped to plume themselves or take a quiet nap on one leg as 
the blue herons are so fond of doing. The egrets (Herodias 
greta) on the contrary, seemed to weary of gathering grass- 
Ppers and frogs, and would spend much time in dressing their 
hers ; but while really undisturbed they never ceased to be 
“'spicious, and the little flocks seemed to have a mutual under- 
“ading for their common safety, as every fifteen or twenty 
Minutes one of their number would rise well up into the air and 
“rele slowly about as if to see if the coast was clear. If at sucha 
any person was noticed approaching, or I purposely showed 
