1878. ] The Night Herons, and their Exodus. 29 
we called it the Swamp. Just that grove where the herons are is 
all that is left of it. We never attacked the birds, so I suppose 
they got to understand us, and to know that they were welcome. 
The felling the timber and tilling the land has pretty much done 
away with the swamps. You see, there’s only about two acres in 
that grove. But the herons were a good deal more numerous 
when the woods were bigger.” 
Hostess. “Yes, I remember when it was a’most deafening to 
hear them.” 
Host. “When we see them coming back in the spring, we know 
that corn-planting is nigh; and when they leave in the fall, it is 
usually time to husk.” 
With the two young men I now started for the heronry, but five 
minutes’ walk distant. It was evidently once a swamp. The grove 
was a remnant of a large wood of red oak, Quercus rubra, and, 
as already stated, did not cover quite two acres of land. With 
an exclusiveness not unlike that of some wasted Indian tribe, these 
red oaks kept out every other kind of tree. They even pressed 
upon one another so closely, that the lower branches after a pre- 
carious growth, inevitably died and fell. Atrophy of the lower 
limbs was the invariable habit. Thus the trees with a small 
girth pushed up towards the sky, each one a slim mast about fifty 
feet in height, with a small dome of shining green leaves at top, 
the base of each little dome crowding upon its fellows. It looked 
to me like a garden supported on piles; but as the wind sprung 
up there was such a wave-like movement overhead, that I wished 
for a balloon view, when I fancied I should see an emerald ocean 
floating in the air. 
But if in mid-air was a scene of beauty, one of quite another 
character was soon to greet our eyes. Everywhere in the grove 
the ground seemed as if plashed with drippings of whitewash. 
And the leaves and twigs of the scanty underbrush were stained 
with these unsightly blotches of white. This was the effect of 
the droppings of the birds, both the old and the young. It indi- 
cated a large consumption of food; and if fish makes good brain 
food, perhaps this may have some bearing on the commendable 
circumspection of these occupants of the top flat in this estab- 
lishment. I was led to look for some peculiar effect on the plant 
life of a soil so dressed annually for a half century. But I failed 
BS to detect anything noteworthy. 
> we entered the wood there arose a grand commotion. An 
