400 NIGHT HERON, OR QUA-BIRD. 



The night heron arrives in Pennsylvania early in April, and 

 immediately takes possession of his former breeding place, 

 which is usually the most solitary and deeply shaded part of a 

 cedar swamp. Groves of swamp oak, in retired and inundated 

 places, are also sometimes chosen, and the males not un- 

 frequently select tall woods, on the banks of the river, to roost 

 in during the day. These last regularly direct their course, 

 about the beginning of evening twilight, towards the marshes, 

 uttering, in a hoarse and hollow tone, the sound qua, which 

 by some has been compared to that produced by the retchings 

 of a person attempting to vomit. At this hour, also, all the 

 nurseries in the swamps are emptied of their inhabitants, who 

 disperse about the marshes, and along the ditches and river 

 shore, in quest of food. Some of these breeding places have 

 been occupied every spring and summer for time immemorial, 

 by from eighty to one hundred pairs of qua-birds. In places 

 where the cedars have been cut down for sale, the birds 

 have merely removed to another quarter of the swamp ; but 

 when personally attacked, long teased, and plundered, they 

 have been known to remove from an ancient breeding place 

 in a body, no one knew where. Such was the case with one 

 on the Delaware, near Thompson's Point, ten or twelve miles 

 below Philadelphia, which having been repeatedly attacked 

 and plundered by a body of crows, after many severe rencoun- 

 ters the herons finally abandoned the place. Several of these 

 breeding places occur among the red cedars on the sea-beach 

 of Cape May, intermixed with those of the little egret, green 

 bittern, and blue heron. The nests are built entirely of sticks, 

 in considerable quantities, with frequently three and four 

 nests on the same tree. The eggs are generally four in 

 number, measuring two inches and a quarter in length, by one 

 and three-quarters in thickness, and of a very pale light blue 

 colour. The ground or marsh below is bespattered with their 

 excrements, lying all around like whitewash, with feathers, 

 broken eggshells, old nests, and frequently small fish, which 

 they have dropt by accident, and neglected to pick up. 



