Tame Night Heron. 
BY HENRY HARES. 
A few years ago I sent a short communica¬ 
tion to the Ornithologist and Oologist in 
regard to the hardiness of Night Herons ( Nyc- 
tiardea gardeni. As my experience with my 
pet Heron was pleasant to myself I think per¬ 
haps it may interest some of your readers. 
Being presented with a pair of Night Herons, 
I kept them but a short time in confinement, 
and then gave them their liberty, which was as 
soon as they appeared able to take care of 
themselves. Living on a farm near a fine 
meadow, with a creek and some woodland, 
they had a good opportunity to start in life on 
their own account, particularly as wild birds 
of the same species were often heard near by. 
In about three weeks one bird disappeared 
but the other remained. We called him Jack, 
to which he always responded, especially 
if hungry. We fed him on fish and meat, 
mice, bazlet etc.; in fact, nothing of animal 
food came amiss to him. He made his head¬ 
quarters in a (lower and kitchen garden in front 
of my house. His sight was to all appearance 
as sharp by day as at twilight, but during the 
latter he was very lively, often taking a flight 
for a mile or more in circles around the place 
or visiting a pond in the edge of the meadow 
near the house, or another duck pond in a poul¬ 
try yard close to the barn, within seventy-five 
feet of it and about thirty from a hen house, 
where he could always find frogs, of which he 
was very fond. At night he roosted in a pine 
I tree close to the front of my house, not often 
flying after dark. During the morning he 
would come to the door and wait for his 
breakfast, following any one of the family and 
calling loudly for his food. After eating he 
would take a position on a fence post, or limb 
of a tree, standing on one leg with his head 
drawn close down to his shoulders, as motion¬ 
less as a statue; but should he not get enough 
to satisfy his hunger he was active and restless; 
he would then follow the cat into the kitchen 
if she had a mouse and watch her to see if she 
would lay it before her kitten, should she do so 
he would snatch it and fly off to his tub of wa¬ 
ter, soak it and swallow it whole. He would 
even go to the kitten's box, turn over the bed 
to look for mice, as the mother cat would some¬ 
times hide them there, as she supposed from 
Jack. 
He often spent longing hours over some 
young quail I had in a wire enclosure. Occas¬ 
ionally he would fall in love with a young 
chicken, and one day when a little neglected, 
he swallowed a half grown bantam, so large 
for his stomach that he could not down the 
legs, as he rested on a post with the bird’s feet 
sticking out of his mouth till the body digested 
sufficiently for the feet to follow. His appe¬ 
tite was not one of the daintiest, especially if 
fish was on the bill of fare. At-one meal he 
once swallowed nine large smelts. 
One thing worth noting was his perfect fear¬ 
lessness of cats and dogs. At times, when 
basking in the sun a dog would run up to him; 
he kept perfectly motionless till the dog came 
close enough, when he would strike at his face 
with such effect as to astonish the dog, who 
would immediately give Jack a wide berth 
afterwards, in consideration of retaining his 
eyesight. He would never let a chance slip 
at our own dog or cat should they pass 
close enough for Jack to get a poke at their 
sides. 
He preferred to sleep on the tree all winter, 
not showing the least appearance of suffering 
from cold in the severest weather. He fed 
freely from our hands and was fond of being 
noticed by any of the family, answering by a 
squark when spoken to, and would follow us 
all over the place. 
When spring came, Jack wanted to build a 
nest and carried up a lot of sticks into his tree 
and made a platform of them but did not finish 
the nest. During the next September, after 
having had him fifteen months, another Heron 
probably the same that left us, visited him 
nightly for several weeks, alighting by the 
pond and calling his well-known squark. One 
morning Jack was missing and we heard no 
more of them. 
The following summer a Night Heron, (no 
doubt the same Jack) aligted on my barn roof 
in company with a young one only half grown, 
to the great consternation of the poultry which 
from their shouts of alarm called my attention 
to the Herons. The old bird flew down to the 
little pond in the poultry yard followed by the 
young one, which it left there, seemingly to 
shift for itself, as it stayed there several weeks 
till full grown. To our delight the old bird 
occasionally visited it. and when he flew over 
would always answer when we called Jack. 
The young bird was so tame that if he was 
disturbed he would merely fly into a tree that 
. overhung the pond and wait till all was quiet 
and then resume his position in the edge of the 
'\ pond watching for frogs. The next year the 
old bird repeated the same thing, bringing 
another young one, but the pond drying up in 
about a week after, the young one left. The 
next fall I filled up the pond as a sanitary 
measure and the next summer saw no more 
of the Herons. 
Several things are worth noting in this affair. 
In the first place, if it was merely a question of 
food, the further pond offered greater induce¬ 
ments ; was it a matter of protection or force 
of habit, or both, that induced the bird to quar¬ 
ter his young one in the yard? No wild Heron 
would light on a barn and then fly to the pond 
so near buildings and surrounded by lots of 
poultry, but no ducks. The poultry did not 
trouble him, as he waded far enough from the 
edge to be out of their way. 
Another singular thing was the remarkable 
tameness and contented manner of the young 
birds in stopping there, for while attending to 
the young chickens, one was very often near 
the pond. Is this a habit of the species, taking 
their young, only half grown, to a place suita¬ 
ble for them to find their own food and shift 
for themselves? If this is generally the case, 
it is a singular habit worth noticing. 
p. 
