190 
NATURE NOTES 
a whistle from the baker brings the bird back to the cart from a considerable 
distance, and invariably he returns to his master with a caw of satisfacton. 
37, Ahoyne Villas , Canonbury , N. Chas. E. J. Hannett. 
September 5. 
412. An Egret Rookery.- — “A long sail up a series of narrow, tortuous 
creeks, between walls of impassable mud, and through immense salt marshes, 
found us anchored at the desired locality. Even before the anchor took the 
mud, late in the afternoon, I had seen the sun glance on the dazzling whiteness 
of several dozen of egrets as they flew to and from the marsh, immaculate amid 
the southern mud, which sticks like glue. After one false start, we found a man 
who knew the location of the rookery, in a great cypress swamp. First we 
tramped a mile over a woodland trail, when we came to an arm of muddy water 
under high, over-arching trees, and a small, flat-bottomed skiff. Working two 
paddles we glided along, and soon emerged in a great area of cypress trees 
growing out of the water. Alligators and turtles splashed before us, and buzzards 
and ospreys wheeled overhead. From the cypress branches, with their delicate 
needle-foliage of pale green, hung the streaming grey moss. Pairs of wood-duck 
started up now and then from the water with resounding wing-beats. 
First we met, as we continued to navigate this cypress sea, scattered nests, with 
eggs, of the Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron. Then we began to meet individuals 
of the familiar Black-Crowned Night-Heron of the North, also breeding, and 
soon emerged into a more open area, where the trees grew more sparsely and 
not so tall. At every rod of progress dozens and scores of egrets, and the 
smaller, dark-coloured little Blue Heron, with numbers of the bluish but white- 
breasted Louisiana Heron, kept springing into the air. Then, as the abundance 
began to lessen, we returned to the heart of the rookery to spend the day. It 
was a wonderful sight, well worth travelling far to see. Upon any sudden noise, 
hundreds of these different herons would spring from trees everywhere about. 
Then they would return, and alight upon the tree-tops, the delicate snow-white 
plumes from the backs of the egrets straying out bewitchingly in the breeze. 
Nearly all day long we paddled about the lacustrine forest, and I revelled in 
the sights and sounds of this wonderful place, which is probably the largest and 
perhaps the only egret rookery in North America. The only reason that it exists 
to-day is because it is guarded by armed wardens who will arrest or, if necessary, 
shoot any person found upon the property with a gun.” — “Country Life in 
America,” by H. K. Job. 
413. Nature Jottings from Tasmania.— In Mr. Holte Macpherson’s 
interesting notes on London Birds for 1905, occurs the following passage : 
“ throughout the summer Swifts may be seen in town every now and then, 
usually in rough and stormy weather ; there were a few flying over the Round 
Pond on the evening of June 7, and on the twenty-sixth of that month I saw 
several flying very high over West Kensington.” The Swift which visits 
Tasmania during the summer months is the “Spine-tailed ( Cheetura caudacuta 
Lath.) : it breeds in Japan, and afterwards is not seen here until February, when 
the summer is well advanced, although I have occasionally noticed it earlier. It 
has the same habit which is noticed by Mr. Macpherson in the British species, of 
suddenly making its appearance in the proximity of cyclonic disturbances, but 
with our bird it is usually when the sky is clearing at the tail-end, so to speak, 
of the disturbance that the Spine-tail is seen, towards evening, high up in the 
heavens. It would be interesting to know what explanations could be offered of 
this trait, which is an established custom of the Cheetura, and not a mere acci- 
dental occurrence. Can it be that the birds are following up a current of warm 
vaporous air, thronged with insect life, at that altitude ? The Chtelura has a 
strong predilection for winged ants as sustenance ; and as these insects usually 
begin to swarm during moist weather in February, and continue through March 
and part of April, there seems to be a distinct connection between the swarming 
period and the visit of the Swifts, these being the very months when the birds 
are most in evidence. It is possible that numbers of these flying ants may be 
borne aloft by strong air-currents accompanying the disturbance, and that the 
birds follow them at a high attitude and feed upon them at their leisure. 
IV. Devonport, Tasmania. H. Stuart Dove. 
July 23, 1906. 
