26o Birds Every Child Should Know 
associate with the heron tribe. Flocking is 
sometimes a fatal habit. 
BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON 
Called also: Quawk; Qua Bird 
When the night herons return to us from the 
South in April, they go straight to the home of 
their ancestors, to which they are devotedly 
attached — rickety, ramshackle heronries, mere 
bundles of sticks in the tops of trees in some 
swamp — ^and begin at once to repair them. 
The cuckoo’s and the dove’s nests are fine 
pieces of architecture compared with a heron’s. 
Is it not a wonder that the helpless heron babies 
do not tumble through the loose twigs? When 
they are old enough to climb around their lat- 
ticed nursery, they still make no attempt to 
leave it, and several more weeks must pass be- 
fore they attempt to fly. If there is an ancient 
heronry in your neighbourhood, as there is in 
mine, don’t attempt to visit the untidy, ill- 
smelling place on a hot day. One would like 
to spray the entire colony with a deodoriser. 
Thanks to the night heron’s habits that keep 
him concealed by day when gunners are abroad, 
a few large heronries still exist within an hour’s 
ride of New York, in spite of much persecution. 
