BLUE HERON. 
151 
instance above mentioned, I found the birds remarkably gentle, which was 
probably owing to fatigue. 
The Blue Heron breeds earlier or later, according to the temperature of 
the district to which it resorts for that purpose, and therefore earlier in 
Florida, where considerable numbers remain, during the whole year, than in 
other parts of the United States. Thus I have found them in the southern 
parts of that country, sitting on their eggs, on the 1st of March, fully a 
month earlier than in the vicinity of Bayou Sara, on the Mississippi, where 
they are as much in advance of those which betake themselves, in very 
small numbers indeed, to our Middle Districts, in which they rarely begin 
to breed before the fifteenth of May. 
The situations which they choose for their nests are exceedingly varied. 
I have found them sitting on their eggs on the Florida Keys, and on the 
islands in the Bay of Galveston, in Texas, in nests placed amidst and upon 
the most tangled cactuses, so abundant on those curious isles, on the latter 
of which the climbing rattlesnake often gorges itself with the eggs of this 
and other species of Heron, as well as with their unfledged young. In the 
lower parts of Louisiana, it breeds on low bushes of the water-willow, as it 
also does in South Carolina; whereas, on the islands on the coast of New 
Jersey, and even on the mainland of that State, it places its nest on the 
branches of the cedar and other suitable trees. Wherever you find its 
breeding place, you may expect to see other birds in company with it, for 
like all other species, excepting perhaps the Louisiana Heron, it rarely 
objects to admit into its society the Night Heron, the Yellow-crowned 
Heron, or the White Egret. 
The heronries of the southern portions of the United States are often of 
such extraordinary size as to astonish the passing traveller. I confess that 
I myself might have been as sceptical on this point as some who, having 
been accustomed to find in all places the Heron to be a solitary bird, can- 
not be prevailed on to believe the contrary, had I not seen with my own 
eyes the vast multitudes of individuals of different species breeding together 
in peace in certain favourable localities. 
The nest of the Blue Heron, wherever situated, is loosely formed of dry 
sticks, sometimes intermixed with green leaves of various trees, and with 
grass or moss, according as these materials happen to be plentiful in the 
neighbourhood. It is nearly flat, and can scarcely be said to have a regular 
lining. Sometimes you see a solitary nest fixed on a cactus, a bush, or a 
tree; but a little beyond this you may observe from six to ten, placed almost 
as closely together as you would have put them had you measured out the 
space necessary for containing them. Some are seen low over the water, 
