28 The Night Herons, and thew Exodus. [ January, 
plumes, nearly ten inches long. If I might change the simile, 
these pretty white filaments are suggestive of the white streamers 
pendant from the chignon of some fantastic bride. And the two 
sets of adornments are afflicted with a similar perverseness; for 
the bridal toggery of the one will insist on getting twisted, and 
Nyctiardea’s nuptial head-gear also will snarl into one. But in 
this instance the thing after all is quite natural and becoming. 
Each of these white, almost thread-like filaments, is nearly cylin- 
drical, owing to an incurving of the edge of the feather; hence 
the three do have a habit of slipping into one another, and mak- 
ing, as it were, a pretty imbricated cord or cue of ivory white- 
ness. The general coloring of this showy bird is such as neither 
pen nor pencil can quite portray. Says Coues, who is a fine bird 
painter, when verbal pigments are concerned: “General plumage 
bluish-gray, more or less tinged with lilac; forehead, throat-line, 
and most under parts whitish.’ The bill is black, and the feet 
are yellow. You will find nothing verdant in the eyes of the 
night heron, although the space between them is of a greenish 
blue. As to the optics themselves, they are red. Does some one 
insinuate “that is the way with night birds?” Let such an one 
consider that generally the owls have bright yellow eyes. 
It was three years ago, just as June, the busy bird month was 
opening, when, accompanied by two of our students, I set out for 
a visit to a famous heronry, some three miles in a south-west 
direction from New Brunswick, N. J. The neighborhood is called 
Three Mile Run, because of a tiny stream about that distance from 
the city. We went first to the farm house near by, where a col- 
loquy something like the following occured: 
Self. “Do you know when the herons began to settle over 
there?” 
Hostess. “ Well, sir, you see it is so long ago since the herons 
- came, that it really is not possible to say when they did settle, 
but they’ve been there 35 years to my certain knowledge.” 
_ Host. “Oh, wife, more than that: I remember them over 40 
yea: and there was father, who had known them long afore that. 
Pll be bound that heronry is 50 years old if a day. And since 
Tve snosi them they’ve come and gone every year, never missing 
once, 
Self. “Is that all the woods there were?” 
_ Host. “Bless you, sir, no. Once that was as pretty a piece of 
_oak woods as one need put eyes on. It covered many acres, and 
