YELLOW-CROWNED NIGHT HERON. 
Having never seen one of these beautiful 
birds I was somewhat surprised when, in | 
April, 1888, my partner and I came suddenly j 
upon one of their breeding places near Levey ! 
Lake. The place they had chosen for tlieir 
nesting site was a little pond densely sur¬ 
rounded by tall trees and containing a thick 
growth of tall button-wood bushes. In these 
bushes, and situated at from three to five feet 
from the water, the nests were placed. They 
were thick, bulky structures, most of them 
having been used for a number of years. The 
bushes in which the nests were placed were 
quite tall and, the place being surrounded by 
tall trees, the nests were in semi-darkness the 
greater part of the day. No signs of bird life 
are visible as you first approach the place, but 
the moment a gun is fired they all leave their [; 
nests and with loud “quocks” fly heavily 
over into the trees at the other side of the 
rookery. They feed almost exclusively at 
night. At the date of our first visit (April 25), 
most of the nests contained complete sets of 
incubated eggs. The nests of last year’s 
birds, however, contained only partially com¬ 
plete sets or else none at all. This lateness in 
nesting is doubtless due to the fact that the 
young birds have to build new nests, while the 
older ones use the same ones from year to 
year. The number of eggs found in a nest 
was generally four, sometimes only three and 
in a few instances six were found. 
With the exception of one or two other sim¬ 
ilar places this is the only place I have ever 
found them nesting, and in all cases there 
were no other Herons found breeding with 
them, unless perchance a straggling Green 
Heron or two. Prof. Frank M. Chapman 
speaks of finding them nesting in isolated 
pairs along the creeks which flow into the 
Swannee River. The Yellow-crowned Night 
Heron, like all the other Herons, upon being 
robbed once will lay the second time. Com- j 
plete sets of their second laying may be found 
at from twenty to twenty-five days from the 
date the first sets were taken. 
F. G. Pearson. , 
Guilford College, N. C. 
O.fe O.Vol.l7,Mc,y 1802 p. 71-72 
Notes on Some Birds of Illinois, 
E,W, Nelson, 
10. Nyctherodius violaceus, Reich . Yellow-crowned Night- 
Heron. — “ In my ‘ Catalogue of the Birds ascertained to occur in Illinois > 
(p. 386), the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron is included as a ‘summer vis¬ 
itant to the extreme southern portion of the State,’ and in my later ‘ Cata¬ 
logue of the Birds of the Lower Wabash Yalley ’ it is given in the list of 
‘species found only in summer’ (p. 26) as ‘common!’ More recently, 
however, we have received information, in the shape of two fine adult spe¬ 
cimens shot from their nests, accompanied by an account of their capture, 
which confirms the breeding of the species in considerable numbers as far 
up the river as Mt. Carmel. The locality where they were found is a 
portion of bottom-land known as ‘ Coffee-flat,’ where a small colony was 
found nesting by Mr. Samuel Turner and my brother, John L. Ridgway, 
on the 6th of May, 1874. Two fine adult specimens in their breeding 
plumage were obtained, as were also a few eggs. One nest is described as 
situated in a white-oak tree about sixty feet from the ground, on a branch 
four inches in diameter, twelve feet from the trunk of the tree, and upon 
so small a limb that the eggs could not be obtained. The nest was com¬ 
posed of sticks, the outer ones about half an inch in diameter, the in¬ 
terior ones finer, and so loosely put together that the eggs could be plainly 
seen through the nest. There were four eggs, and another ready to be 
laid was taken from the parent bird. The number of nests found in this 
locality is not stated in the letter, but another nest is mentioned which 
was upon a tree about fifty feet distant.” 
Bull, N.O.O, I, July, 1870. p,43 
On a Oollmtion of from 
Georgia, H.B, Bailey, 
86. Nyctherodius violaceus. White-crowned Night Heron. — 
Nests in trees near streams of water; eggs five. May 8. 
# 
Bull, N.O.Q, 8, Jau, 188 3, p.42 
