THE GREAT WHITE HERON. 
117 
They betook themselves to roosting in a beautiful arbour in his garden ; 
where at night they looked with their pure white plumage like beings of 
another world. It is a curious fact, that the points of their bills, of which 
an inch at least had been broken, grew again, and were as regularly shaped 
at the end of six month's as if nothing had happened to them. In the 
evening or early in the morning, they would frequently set, like pointer 
dogs, at moths which hovered over the flowers, and with a well-directed 
stroke of their bill seize the fluttering insect and instantly swallow it. On 
many occasions, they also struck at chickens, grown fowls and ducks, which 
they would tear up and devour. Once a cat, which was asleep in the 
sunshine, on the wooden steps of the veranda, was pinned through the body 
to the boards and killed by one of them. At last they began to pursue the 
younger children of my worthy friend, who therefore ordered them to be 
killed. One of them was beautifully mounted by my assistant Mr. IIenuy 
Ward, and is nowin the Museum of Charleston. Dr. Gibbes was obliged 
to treat his in the same manner ;. and I afterwards saw one of them in his 
collection. 
Mr. Egan kept for about a year one of these birds, which he raised from 
the nest, and which, when well grown, was allowed to ramble along the 
shores of Indian Key in quest of food. One of the wings had been cut, and 
the bird was known to all the resident inhabitants, but was at last shot by 
some Indian hunter, who had gone there to dispose of a collection of sea 
shells. 
Some of the Herons feed on the berries of certain trees during the latter 
part of autumn and the beginning of winter. Dr. B. Strobel observed 
the Night Heron eating those of the “Gobolimbo,” late in September at 
Key West. 
Among the varied and contradictory descriptions of Herons, you will find 
it alleged that these birds seize fish while on wing by plunging the head 
and neck into the water ; but this seems to me extremely doubtful. Nor, 
I believe, do they watch for their prey while perched on trees. Another 
opinion is, that Herons are always thin, and unfit for food. This, however, 
is by no means generally the case in America, and I have thought these 
birds very good eating when not too old. 
Great White Heron, Ardea occidental is, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. iii. p. 542 ; vol. v. p. 590. 
Male, 54, 83. Female, 50, 75. 
Resident in the southern Florida Keys. Texas. Never seen to the 
eastward of Cape Florida, nor on the mainland. Common. 
Adult Male. 
