HERONS, BITTERNS, ETC.: NIGHT HERON 
95 
complete their day’s rest. For, as their name indicates, most of their 
feeding is done at night, though in the nesting season, Doctor Chapman 
says, “the demands of the young force them to feed both day and night.” 
At this time, when catfish and small carp are speared by them, Dr. T. S. 
Roberts notes, they are swallowed whole, head first, and afterwards 
regurgitated from the gullet for the young. The nesting colonies some¬ 
times contain thousands of pairs, but the birds usually hunt alone and 
a solitary one may often be seen flying high across the sky, occasionally 
uttering the loud quawk that has become its familiar name in the coun¬ 
try side. 
At Lake Burford, Doctor Wetmore flushed Night Herons from the 
rushes along the lake shore and occasionally saw five or six together, 
enjoying the sun on open beaches. In the evening they flew back and 
forth in front of his cabin to convenient points from which to watch for 
the water dogs that, with frogs, seemed the only available food supply. 
On one occasion, when he was sitting in a blind in the rushes, a Heron 
flew by, and spying a dead water dog floating in the lake alighted on the 
water where it was six feet deep and seized the axolot in its bill. It 
rested on the surface for a moment and then rose easily and flew off with 
its prey. In fact, Doctor Wetmore found the birds playing the part of 
active scavengers and keeping the dead water dogs well cleaned up. 
At Mesilla Park, Professor Merrill found the Night Herons the most 
common of their family. They bred in the big trees along the river and 
foraged inland to shallow lakes and marshes as food gave out on the Rio 
Grande. Although they like to sit humped up in flocks among dead 
trees as if asleep, Professor Merrill says that a watch is evidently kept, 
for unless a very cautious approach is made a squawk from one starts 
up the whole flock, and they all disappear into the leafy trees. 
In Albuquerque, Mr. Aldo Leopold reports, a colony of Night Herons 
protected by the Game Protective Association have not only safely 
raised their young but spent the winter within city limits , spending their 
days in the cottonwood trees and at sunset flying down to their hunting 
grounds on the river, so giving the people of the city a rare opportunity 
to become familiar with a most interesting phase of bird life. 
Additional Literature,—Bailey, S. W., Auk, XXXII, 424-441,1915. Bent, 
A. C., U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 135, 197-213, 1926— Carey, H. R., Bird-Lore, 
XXVII, 1-7, 1925— Chapman, F. M., Bird Studies with a Camera, 76-85, 1900.— 
Finley, W. L., American Birds, 225-231, 1907.— Gross, A. O., Auk, XL, 1-30, 
191-214, 1923 (life history); XLII, 99, 1925 (changing color of eye).—R ockwell, 
R. B., Condor, XII, 113-121, 1910. 
BITTERNS: Subfamily Botaurinae 
Bitterns are herons of rather inconspicuous colors; mostly without 
long nuptial crests or plumes. They commonly nest separately instead 
of in colonies. 
