LIITLE BLUE HERON. 
95 
The Blue Heron may be considered almost a restricted 
native of the warmer climates of the United States, from 
whence it migrates at the approach of winter into the tropical 
parts of the continent, being found in Cayenne, Mexico, and 
the island of Jamaica. The muddy shores of the Mississippi 
from Natchez downward are its favorite resort. 
In the course of the spring, however, a few migrate to New 
England, restricting their visits, like many other of the tender 
species, to the confines of the ocean and its adjoining marshes, 
where their proper food of reptiles, worms, and insect larvae 
abound. They also often visit the fresh-water bogs in the 
vicinity of their eyries, and move about actively, sometimes 
making a run at their prey. Like the Snowy Herons, with 
which they sometimes associate, they are also, when the occa- 
sion requires, very silent, intent, and watchful. These noc- 
turnal and indolent birds appear tacitly to associate and breed 
often in the same swamps, leading towards each other, no 
doubt, a very harmless and independent life. Patient and 
timorous, though voracious in their appetites, their defence 
consists in seclusion, and with an appropriate instinct they 
seek out the wildest and most insulated retreats in nature. 
1 he undrainable morass grown up with a gigantic and gloomy 
forest, imperviously filled with tangled shrubs and rank herb- 
age, abounding with disgusting reptiles, sheltering wild beasts, 
und denying a foot-hold to the hunter, are among the chosen 
resorts of the sagacious Herons, whose uncouth manners, harsh 
voice, rank flesh, and gluttonous appetite allow them to pass 
quietly through the workl as objects at once contemptible and 
useless; yet the part which they perform in the scale of 
existence, in the destruction they make amongst reptiles and 
msects, affords no inconsiderable benefit to man. 
A few of the Blue Herons, for common safety, breed among 
the Night Herons, the Snowy species, and the Green Bittern, 
umong the cedars (or Virginian junipers) on the sea-beach of 
Cape May. 
The Blue Egret nests regularly, though in small numbers, as far 
uorth as New Jersey and Illinois. An occasional straggler has 
