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BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON, QUA-BIRD. 
true Herons ; it walks in a stooping posture, the neck much retracted, until it 
sees its prey, when, with a sudden movement, it stretches it out and secures 
its food. It is never seen standing motionless, waiting for its prey, like the 
true Herons, but is constantly moving about in search of it. Its feeding 
places are the sides of ditches, meadows, the shady banks of creeks, bayous, 
and ponds or rivers, as well as the extensive salt-marshes and mud-bars left 
exposed at low water ; and I have observed it to alight in the ponds in the 
suburbs of Charleston towards evening, and feed there. In all such situa- 
tions, excepting the last, this bird may often be seen by day, but more 
especially in the evening or morning twilight, wading up to its ankles, or, 
as we commonly say, its knee-joints. Its food consists of fishes, shrimps, 
tadpoles, frogs, water-lizards, and leeches, small Crustacea of all kinds, water 
insects, moths, and even mice, which seem not less welcome to it than its 
more ordinary articles of food. When satisfied, it retires to some high tree 
on the banks of a stream or in the interior of a swamp, and there it stands, 
usually on one leg, for hours at a time, apparently dozing, though seldom 
sound asleep. 
When wounded, this bird first tries to make its escape by hiding among 
the grass or bushes, squatting the moment it finds what it deems a secure 
place ; but if no chance of a safe retreat occurs, it raises its crest, ruffles its 
feathers, and, opening its bill, prepares to defend itself. It can bite pretty 
severely, but the injury inflicted by its bill is not to be compared with that 
produced by its claws, which on such occasions it uses with much effect. If 
you seize it, it utters a loud, rough, continued sound, and tries to make its 
escape whenever it perceives the least chance. 
The Night Heron undergoes three annual changes of plumage ere it 
attains its perfect state, although many individuals breed in the spring of 
the third year. After the first autumnal moult, the young is as you see it 
represented in the plate. In the second autumn, the markings of the neck 
and other parts have almost entirely disappeared ; the upper parts of the 
head have become of a dull blackish-green, mixing near the upper mandible 
with the dull brown of the first season, while the rest of the plumage has 
assumed a uniform dull ochreous greyish-brown. In the course of the 
following season, the bird exhibits the green of the shoulders and back, the 
head is equally richly coloured, and the frontal band between the uppei 
mandible and the eye, and over the latter, is pure white. At this age it 
rarely has the slender white feathers of the hind head longer than an inch 
or two. The sides of the neck, and all the lower parts, have become of a 
purer greyish-white. The wings are now spotless in all their parts, and of 
a light brownish-grey, as is the tail. The following spring, the plumage is. 
complete, and the bird is as represented in the plate. After this period, 
