In Heron Haunts 
has two natures, though in a different way. 
At most times no title better describes him 
than “lone fisherman.” He knows not the 
social delights of “the autocrat of the break- 
fast table”; silent and alone he wades along 
some margin, or slips through the tangles 
of the morass. Few eyes but those of rail, 
muskrat, or some such creature, witness the 
unerring stroke that lays low fish, frog, or 
wriggling snake, or the impulsive rush that 
often precedes it. But when the time for 
nesting comes, behold him in the rookery, 
amid a sea of nests, surrounded by squawk- 
ing multitudes; and who would suspect him 
of his prevailing unsocial habit ? 
Throughout our northern and middle dis- 
tricts there are but five species of heron 
properly belonging to the region, though 
an oceasional southerner loses his way and 
gives us a surprise. First is the high and 
lofty great blue heron, often wrongly called 
blue crane, the shyest of them all. Second 
in size is the black-crowned night heron, or 
“quawk,” most common along the sea- 
coast, though by no means confined to it, 
a beautiful bird of gray and dark green 
plumage in the adult phase—during breed- 
ing time, with a long white plume stream- 
IgGl 
ing from the nape, the young being very 
different, of a mottled brown and white. 
Hardly smaller, our third, is the American 
bittern, ‘“*boomer” of the meadow, ‘stake- 
More 
slender than the night heron, his plumage 1s 
driver,” “post-driver,” and so on. 
enough like that of the young of that species 
to cause some confusion, though it is of a 
more yellowish cast, besides having broad 
black stripes on the sides of the neck. 
Number four is the green heron, “poke,” or 
“skeowk”’—as they eall him down on Cape 
Cod; a little dark-colored fellow, the most 
generally distributed of them all, found in 
almost every marsh or swamp. Last, and 
smallest, is the least bittern, a tiny, yellowish- 
brown rail-like creature, that slips silently 
through the tangles of reed and waterplant, 
and keeps well out of sight of all but the 
determined lover of the water-birds. 
To return to the great blue heron, my ex- 
perience for vears with the big fellow of the 
long legs and neck has been as of hermit 
with hermit. He was always alone, and, 
for my own part, I had to be alone to get 
anywhere near him; no talking is allowed 
in his laboratory; voices are so disturbing 
to his solitary meditations and researches as 
Green Heron on Nest. 
