( February, 1922 
up in the air for twenty or thirty feet 
with long necks and. bills upstretched 
I and long legs trailing. Much discordant 
croaking followed and quickly when I 
sank back in the cover of the grass at 
the margin of the water they settled 
gently down into the reeds and all was 
quiet as before. Again arising and clap- 
ping my hands sharp and loud hundreds 
of the “Silver Grays” are up in the air 
in a croaking, swaying, fluttering mass. 
Literally hundreds of herons, for I 
make an effort to count them by estimat- 
ing the whole from the space occupied 
in the air by fifty actually counted and 
the total goes to half a thousand. A few 
steps into the reeds and the mystery is 
solved. No pond or stream is here along 
which they are feeding; no mud flat with 
choicest wrigglers for hungry herons, 
but high, broad, open salt marsh with 
densest growth of the common, round, 
sharp-pointed rushes and scattered over 
such as have been bent by storms are 
the nests of these herons. Dozens of 
them in sight at once and many more 
scattered far and wide out over this salt 
marsh. Beautiful bluish-green or gray- 
green was the color of the treasures 
contained in these nests and varying in 
number up to four. A few were of a 
pure deep green shade, but for the most 
part as if a fog had slightly touched the 
surface which in every case was of a 
.solid unbroken shading. 
Why the change in the nesting site 
has been a problem unsolved. The new 
location would seem to be more exposed 
to attacks of crows and predatory an- 
! imals and a heavy storm with high tide 
would sweep the entire colony of nests 
and contents into the surging waters. 
These islands are frequently inundated. 
It might be conjectured that having be- 
come attached to the locality while the 
fewer members of former years were 
nesting in the limited area of the line of 
An almost impassable fishway 
bushes, when the colony outgrew the 
capacity of the old site, rather than split 
up the community, they all forsook the 
f older situation for the new one. 
1 It is to be admitted that this reason- 
ing is somewhat labored and incapable 
, of proof but who can furnish a better 
I explanation? It is possible the contents 
' of the nests would be quite as safe from 
marauding crows, protected by the great 
' numbers of interested birds in the open 
marsh as they had formerly been in 
FOREST AND STREAM 
the narrow, ribbon-like line of bushes 
through which a wily crow could slip 
unobserved. It will be of interest to 
note the further behavior of the colony 
in years to come ; whether they will con- 
tinue in the new departure settlement or 
move back to their old place of abode, 
and a portion swarm off to other quar- 
ters. 
Dove-nest on ground 
T SAVING the vicinity of the herons’ 
■*— ' nests I can see the birds hastening 
their return to resume their cares of 
brooding and quickly they drop down 
into the tall grass and become calm as 
before the intrusion. It is almost night- 
fall when camp is reached. The cooks 
are busily engaged and soon prove the 
fallacy of the old adage for with four 
of the five having a “finger in the pie” 
the broth is not spoiled, and a hearty 
good meal is soon enjoyed. Hard times, 
poor fishing, and birds are discussed 
about the open fire out of doors around 
which we have gathered; the threatened 
Norther has “come out” following the 
heavy showers in the earlier day and as 
we row across to the launch I to turn in 
and the others for an extra coat pre- 
paratory to another fishing trip until to- 
wards midnight we see the brighter stars 
come out in the western sky and a 
Chuck-Will’s-Widow, the Whip-poor- 
will of the south, is calling in rapid 
tones off in the timber across the inland 
marsh. The morrow will be colder, it 
is predicted by the weather prophet. 
Sometime in the night I hear the fisher- 
men come aboard and again I am lulled 
by the gentle swaying of the boat as she 
rides at anchor and the soft lap-lap-lap 
of the incoming tide against the launch’s 
side and a croaking heron calls “All’s 
Well” from along shore as he probably 
stands sentinel-like on watch to give a 
spear-thrust to some passing sea-farer. 
GROUND-NESTING DOVE 
A S a rule, and this is well known, the 
wild dove seeks its nesting place 
on or between the limbs of a tree; ex- 
ceptions, however, occur, when this pop- 
ular game bird occasionally prepares a 
nest directly on the ground. The writer 
has often found such ground-breeding 
doves during olden days hunting trips, 
at a time when the wild dove was ex- 
ceedingly numerous around the sun- 
flower beds and on grain fields and 
pastures, and around tanks; and decid- 
edly less slaughtered than now for rea- 
son of the overabundance of hunters in 
later years. 
A good photograph of one such ground 
dove nest is hereby submitted, which I 
69 
encountered some years ago during a 
quail and dove hunt in the hilly sub- 
urban regions, beyond the present met- 
ropolitan city of San Antonio. I recol- 
lect having just exterminated a large 
rattler when all of a sudden a dove 
fluttered off its ground nest right in 
front of me and close to some mesquite 
brush and cactus leaves, which, at the 
time, were literally covered with the 
small white prairie-snail; also the rocky 
ground around the neat little nest showed 
numbers of the snail houses. Having, 
at that time, the camera with me, I pre- 
pared the photo on the spot this nest 
was found, and the copy herein shows 
only the main central part of the 4x5 
photograph. Menger, 
San Antonio, Texas. 
A PLUCKY STRUGGLE 
T he squirming little eels shown in 
the photograph below climbing up 
the rocks are merely the advance guard 
of the mighty host that struggle upward 
in the water below. These tiny crea- 
tures are making a desperate effort to 
get up through the rocky falls of the 
fishway beside a big dam across the 
longest unnavigable river in the world. 
This almost impassible fishway is lo- 
cated at McCall’s Ferry along the Sus- 
quehanna river in Southern Pennsyl- 
vania. 
One cannot help wondering at and 
admiring the plucky fight these wiggling 
little fellows put up in the face of al- 
most insurmountable barriers. Hour 
after hour these baby eels struggle up 
the rocky fishway, advancing over rocks 
that are temporarily free from the cur- 
rent, only to be washed back time and 
time again. Nothing daunted they keep 
up the struggle and begin the' ascent all 
over again. Further up the rocky gorge 
Lamprey ascending rapids 
one can see hundreds of little eels cling- 
ing to the rocks which jut out of the 
water, taking a temporary rest before 
they proceed on their perilous journey. 
Here and there float lifeless little cels 
which no longer wiggle. The struggle 
up the torrent of the fishway was too 
much for the puny strength which they 
matched against such fearful odds. In 
the other illustration one can get an 
idea of the rough up-hill climb that lies 
{Continued on page 95) 
i. 
