198 ARDEIDvE.
(Ibis, 1861, p. 58). Ill some parts the Night-Heron makes
its nest on the reeds, and in the swamps of Lake Michigan
Mr. Nelson found over fifty nests placed in the midst of
particularly dense bunches of wild rice, the stiff last year’s
stalks of which, converging near the roots, formed a coin
venient base for their support. The nests were all well-
built structures composed of pieces of dead rice-stalks; their
diameter was from twelve to fifteen inches, and a man could
stand on them without doing them any perceptible injury.
The eggs, from three to five in number, are of a pale
greenish-blue, measuring about 2 by 1*4 in. Judging from
Swinlioe’s experience, the bird commences sitting on the first
egg laid, and there is an interval of two days between each
egg. In Europe incubation takes place in May.
The food of the Night-Heron consists of water-insects and
their larvas, worms, snails, small fish, and frogs. The note of
the bird is a mournful qua-a, seldom uttered except as a call-
note in the dusk, or when its breeding colonies are disturbed.
The adult Night-Heron has the beak nearly black above
and at the point; the base of the lower mandible and the
naked skin around the eyes, bluish-grey; the irides crimson;
the top of the head and the back of the neck black;
the elongated occipital plumes white, and generally three in
number, but in very old birds the number is greater, and as
many as ten have been counted by Mr. Kodd and others;
scapulais, interscapulars, and back, nearly black, glossed
with green; wings, wing-coverts, all the quill-feathers,
secondaries, tertials, and tail-feathers, ash-grey; throat and
neck almost white, passing into dull greyish-white on the
sides; breast, belly, thighs, flanks, and under tail-coverts,
nearly pure white ; legs and toes yellow ; claws black. The
female is slightly duller in plumage than the male. Length,
fiom the point of the beak to the end of the tail, about
twenty-three inches; from the carpal joint to the end of the
wing, twelve inches.
The young Night-Heron has the upper mandible of the
beak of a dark brown, the edge on each side lighter in
colour, and, like the under mandible and the naked skin
NIGHT-HERON. 199
around the eye, of a pale greenish-brown ; irides brown ; no
elongated occipital plumes; top of the head, back of the
neck, interscapulars, shoulders, wing, and wing-coverts, clove-
brown, the centre of each feather being pale wood-brown,
extending to the tip, but bounded on the sides with darker
brown; primaries, secondaries, and tertials, clove-brown
tipped with pale wood-brown ; rump, and upper tail-coverts,
a mixture of ash-grey, pale brown, and clove-brown ; tail-
feathers greyish-brown; chin, throat, neck in front, breast,
and under surface of the body, dull white, with elongated
patches of greyish-brown; legs and toes brown, tinged with
green; claws dark brown.
It appears from the statements of Swinlioe and A. Anderson,
that males are capable of reproduction when still in
immature plumage.
The nestling has the bare skin of a sea-green ; the down
is purplish-grey, tipped with white on the crown, and whiter
on the flanks and belly; lore and bill yellowish-green ; legs
greenish above, yellow below.