nearly 3 percent- of mice and native rats; and most of 'the remainder i/vas com- 

 posed of spiders and iworms. It thus appears that there' is little cause for 

 condemning the blacic-croxmod night heron on the grounds of its- feeding activi- 

 ties in its natural environment and that its food includes considerable quanti- 

 ties of a number of forms that are inimical to the interests of man. 



Yellow*crowned Hight Heron 



The yellow-crowned night heron, which normally occurs only in the southern 

 half of the United States, has been unjustly condemned as a destroyer of 

 g.ame, fishes and frogs, despite the fact that it rarely ever eats fish. The 

 stomach contents of 120 of these herons were examined in the laboratory and only 

 one fish was found in the entire series and this was of no commercial or sport- 

 ing value. Nearly the entire food was made up of crustaceans, of which craw- 

 fishes, together with a fevj crabs, formed more than 98 percent. Crawfishes 

 being preponderantly destructive, their consumption by this bird is greatly to 

 its credit, 



Am erican Bittern 



> 



. The American bittern, variously known as "slough-pump", "shite-poke", 

 and "marsh hen", is frequently charged with being an important destroyer of 

 game fishes. This member of the heron family usually feeds in the concealment 

 of the densest beds of marsh vegetation, whero there is little opportunity to 

 obtain gsjne fishes, and its peculisr habit of remaining motionless, beak 

 pointed skyvvard, vjhen approached hy an intruder adds much interest not only 

 for bird students but for the worago country boy as he drives the cattle home 

 ■.from lowland pastures at sundown. .Its' unusual call, far from musical, con- 

 sists of a slow, hollow punkor-er-lunk , but it is a most welcome indication in 

 the marshy regions of tho Northern States that summer 'is near. 



Field observations in numerous areas and the laboratory examinations of 

 nearly 160 stomachs collected throughout the United States and southern Canada 

 indicate that under natural conditions- these birds should not -be considered a 

 menace to the interests of anglers or corniaercial fishermen. Less than a tenth 

 of the food vcas found to be composed of valuable fishes and most of these vjere 

 the common pan varieties — sunfish, yellov; perch, bullheads, and pickerel. 

 Trout occurred in only one of the stomachs, vjhile bass were found in tv;o, but 

 all three of these were collected at fish hatcheries. It is only at such 

 places that control of the bittern is occasionally warranted, 



A tabulation of the contents of 133 ^vellrfilled stomachs revealed that 

 insects formed 23.13 percent of the food; frogs and salamanders, 20.55 percent; 

 crawfishes, 18,98 percent; mice and shrews, 9,64 percent; valuable fishes 9,67 

 percent; fishes of little value {chiefly minnows and sticklebacks), 9,55 percent; 

 unidentified fish remains, 1,07 percent; snakes 5,21 percent; and the remainder 

 vjas made up of small quantities of crabs, spiders, and miscellaneous inverte- 

 brates, 



Other Herons 



Egrets, little blue herons, and other members of the heron family are 

 too frequently sought out and killed in their marshy habitats or at their tree 

 roosts on the pretext of saving game or commercial fishes. The more extreme 

 opponents of fish-eating birds recommend — and no doubt practice whenever 



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