82 
ALLENS naturalist’s LIBRARY. 
reverend in every respect excepting as regards the protection 
of rare birds in England. 
Eange outside the British Islands — From Southern and Central 
Europe the Night-Heron extends across Asia to China and 
Japan, and again throughout Africa, always, of course, in 
localities suited to its habits. In North America it is also 
found in the temperate portions, ranging south through Central 
America to the West Indies, and to Colombia and Ecuador in 
South America. In Brazil its place is taken by an allied 
species, N. tayazit-gtnra, which ranges to Peru and south to 
Chili, Patagonia, and the Falkland Islands, while a third 
species, N. cyanocephalus, is found from Chili south to the 
Straits of Magellan. 
Habits. — The Night-Heron is one of the skulking Herons, 
and, except at the breeding-places, is not easily observed. “ It 
is,” says Mr. Seebobm, “almost exclusively a swamp-feeding 
bird, and the stomachs of those I examined contained fresh- 
water crustaceans and the tender shoots of water-plants. It 
also feeds on small fish, small frogs and tadpoles, water-beetles, 
the larvx of dragon-flies and other insects, worms and snails. 
My acquaintance with the Night-Heron was made in the 
Hansag marshes in Hungary towards the end of May, 1891. 
On a very hot morning we had been pursuring a tortuous 
course through the reed-beds, a cavalcade of nineteen boats in 
all, listening to the varied calls of the marsh-birds. Terns, Geese, 
Wood-Sandpipers,Grasshopper-Warblers,GreatSedge-Warbler.s’ 
&c., when the word was passed for silence, as we were approach- 
ing the nesting-place of the Night-Herons. As we drew near 
we could hear a croaking, but so silently had we come alon-^ 
that but few birds could be seen, until a shot from one of the 
leading boats startled the whole colony of Night-Herons into 
life, and the air became full of them. Their eggs W’ere freshly 
laid, there were no young in the nests to awaken parental 
feelings, but their anxiety manifested itself in the way in which 
they flew round and round, hovering over their nests, and 
many victims fell before the colony elected to move farther 
off. The water was nearly up to one’s tvaist, but my boatman 
volunteered to wade it, and soon returned with several birds 
and a hatful of eggs. All attempts to make him understand 
that I wanted the nests separately with the clutches of eggs 
