8 i 4 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 24, 1906. 
THE LARGEST TREE IN THE HERON VILLAGE. 
Containing 69 nests—41 nests of great blue heron and 28 night heron nests. The center of activity 
in the heron village, a sycamore 120 ft. high and with a spread of over 100 ft. 
Photo by Finley and Bohlman. 
A young night heron is well adapted to climb¬ 
ing from limb to limb by reason of his long, 
angling toes and the ability to hook his neck 
or bill over a limb and draw himself up as a 
parrot does. Not so with the young blue 
herons; they are as awkward about the limbs 
of the trees as their parents are stately in mov¬ 
ing through the air. When overbalanced on a 
limb, they often fall to the ground. 
The young birds of both species seem in¬ 
stinctively to know that falling from the trees 
to the ground below means death. Not because 
they are hurt in the least by the fall, but be¬ 
cause the old birds never descend to the ground 
below the nest tree. The ground under the trees 
was strewn with the bodies of young birds. The 
young are fed only in the treetop and those be¬ 
low starve in the very sight of their parents. 
Several times we saw young night herons 
hanging dead in the branches of the trees. In 
one tree we found two of these youngsters hang¬ 
ing side by side only a foot apart. In walking 
about the limbs, the larger of the two birds had 
caught its foot in a crotch and hung itself head 
downward. That in itself was not unusual, but 
the second bird hung by the neck only a few 
inches away. It seems that this smaller heron 
had hung itself rather than fall to the ground; 
he had fallen or overbalanced on the small limb 
and, as is the custom, had hooked his chin over 
the branch to keep from falling to the ground. 
His clutched right foot showed that the death- 
struggle had been a reaching and stretching to 
gain the limb. The head was not caught be¬ 
tween the branches as was the other bird’s foot, 
but was simply hooked over the bend in the 
twig. Had he thrown his head back a little he 
would have dropped to the ground. We demon¬ 
strated this by turning the bill to an angle of 
45 degrees and the body dropped to the bushes 
twenty feet below. How the bird could have 
held the rigid position of the neck throughout 
its death struggle, I do not understand, unless 
it was a case where force of instinct was strong 
even to death. 
The last trip we made to the heronry, we 
found the limbs of the sycamores as well loaded 
with young herons as a good apple tree is loaded 
with fruit. The moment we started to climb the 
tree with our cameras, was the signal for the 
breaking loose of a squawking bedlam. Young 
“squawks” jabbered all sorts of epithets from 
the nest edge and retreated along the limbs as 
we drew nearer. The young blue herons 
savagely disputed every foot of our climb. They 
aimed a fusilade of stabs at us from all sides, 
and we took great care not to get within reach 
of their weapons. When we did get into the 
treetop, it took some little maneuvering to oust 
a pair of enraged youngsters so we could sit in 
their nest and aim the camera at the birds about. 
It was considerable trouble for 11s to get a 
series of heron pictures. We suffered and 
scratched for weeks with a miserable rash from 
the poison-oak, but we made five long trips to 
the heron village. The last trips through the 
jungle were not so difficult as the first; we had 
the beginning of a path and we doped with 
poison-oak preventives, gloved our hands and 
veiled our faces. But it was worth it all just 
to get a clear conception of what life is in a 
big heronry. It was a sight for the soul just 
to watch the great blue herons; the long, slow 
wing-beats as they flapped in from the feeding 
grounds; then the picture of quiet restfulness as 
they lounged about their nests after the day’s 
work. 
Portland, Oregon 
Remarkable Wild Ducks. 
Green Bay, Wis., Oct. 18 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Possibly some of your readers may 
be able to inform me what kind of ducks the 
following birds are: 
In appearance something similar to the ordi¬ 
nary mallard duck; in the drake, bill very yellow, 
head green, white ring around the neck with 
head, neck and bill the size of a goose. The 
back and wings very similar to the ordinary mal¬ 
lard, but the two outer feathers on wing-tips 
are white, bar on wing the same as mallard. 
feet yellow with black nails, feet as large as a 
goose. Breast and lower part of neck mottled 
gray part way and then patch of white as large 
as a man’s hand clear across breast, balance to 
tail feather mottled gray. Weight, 4^2 pounds, 
very thin. The duck, same description as drake, 
with the exception of the entire breast being 
mottled gray and nails on feet yellow and head 
all gray; with four feathers on either wing-tip. 
Weight, 4I4 pounds; bird thin. 
These birds were shot several days ago by 
two sportsmen of this city in the afternoon. 
They took them for geese at first. They say 
they make a noise more like a goose than a 
mallard, although they came to the mallard call. 
The crops of the birds were filled with wild rice 
and a little sand and gravel; nothing further 
that could be discovered. Flesh very similar to 
a mallard duck and nice and sweet. 
The sportsmen say they saw a flock from 
which these birds apparently ‘came, and think 
they were the same class of birds. Could such 
a thing be possible as a wild mallard duck 
crossing with the large pekin duck, or would 
a mallard duck cross with some of the smaller 
geese? 
The writer has seen a great many freak birds, 
but these seem to be extremly odd. In com¬ 
paring these birds lying side by side with a mal¬ 
lard. they appear to be again the size of the 
mallard duck, by the monstrous head, bill and 
feet giving them all the appearance of a goose. 
I trust that some one will be able to describe 
these ducks, whether they are hybrids, or 
whether a bird out of its territory, although I 
know no similar duck in America, and believe 
them a cross of either the two kinds mentioned. 
I sent you an article about four years ago, 
having seen a small flock of genuine wild 
pigeons. We have some mounted birds in this 
town, and as I have shot them and seen them in 
flight, I am not mistaken. Two years ago there 
were several small flocks in this county of 
genuine wild pigeons, but believe they were all 
killed off. One farmer reported killing several, 
but did not save them. They went on the table. 
A. G. H. 
[It appears quite certain that the birds re¬ 
ferred to were hybrids, and from the description, 
•one of the parent birds was unquestionably a 
mallard; what the other parent was is quite un¬ 
certain, though perhaps an inspection of the 
birds might give a hint. 
It is well known that hybrids are more com¬ 
mon among ducks than in any other group of 
birds, and that a considerable number of such 
crosses have been described. Of these one was 
figured by Audubon under the name bimacu- 
bated duck. The hybrids between the black duck 
and the mallard, and the sprigtail and the mal¬ 
lard are so common that we have known a 
gunner who has killed several of each. 
We are disposed to think that the birds de¬ 
scribed by our correspondent were hybrids be¬ 
tween the wild mallard and a domestic duck. 
The suggestion that they were hybrids between 
a duck and some one of the geese is inad¬ 
missible.] 
