36 THE CONDOR I VoL. VIII Nature has built the heron in an extremely practical way. She dressed him in colors of sky and water. She did not plant his eyes in the top of his head, as she did the woodcock's, because he is not likely to be injured by enemies. from above; but she put them right on the lower sloping side of his head, so he could look straight down at his feet without the slightest sideturn. She let his legs grow too long for perching conveniently on a tree, just so he could wade in deep enough to fish. She gave him a dagger-shaped bill at the end of a neck that was long enough to reach bottom, as well as to keep his eyes high above woter so he could see and aim correctly at the creature below the surface. The great blue heron is a remarkable fellow in adapting himself to circum- stances. In a bird of such long legs and of such proportions one would naturally think his nesting place would be on the ground, and in regions where they have been Undisturbed this is his favorite site. In the lake region of Southern Oregon we found the colonies of great blue herons nesting on the floating tule islands, sur- rounded on all sides with gulls, cormorants, pelicans and terns. In other parts oi Oregon and in California we have found colonies of these same birds living in the tallest firs deep back in the forest, or in the sycamores and willows in the midst of a swamp. During the summer of x9o 4, while in California, we made several different trips to a heronry not very far distant from the densely populated district about San Francisco. This heronry was in the center of a narrow wooded belt reaching out into the swamp for about. a mile. When we approached this thicket we saw the trees were well loaded with nests. We skirted the edge of the belt looking for an entrance, but to our surprise each place we tried to enter was barred with a perfect mass of tangled bushes and trees. We crawled thru in one place for a few feet, but over all and thru all was a mass of poison oak and blackberry that one could not penetrate. There was not the sign of a path. After hunting for two hours, we went to the point opposite the largest tree and decided to push and cut our way thru. The first few yards we crawled on ha?ds and knees, pushing our cameras or dragging them behind. Unable to crawl further, we had to clear a way and climb a ten-foot brush heap. For a few yards we ducked under and wiggled along the bed of a ditch in the mire to our knees. I never saw such a tangled mass of brush. Fallen limbs and trees of alder, swamp-maple and willow interlaced with blackberry briers, poison oak and the rankest growth of nettles. All the while we were assailed by an increasing mob of starving mosqui- toes that went raving mad at the taste of blood. We pushed on, straining, sweat- ing, crawling and climbing for a hundred yards that seemed more like a mile. We forgot it all the minute we stood under the largest sycamore. It was seven feet thick at the base, and a difficult proposition to climb. But this was the center of business activity in the heron village. The monster was a hundred and twenty feet high and had a spread of limbs equal to its height. In this single tree we counted forty-one blue heron nests and twenty-eight night heron nests: sixty-nine nests in one tree. In another tree were seventeen of the larger nests and twenty-eight of the smaller. We made the first trip to the heronry on April ?x, and found most of the nests contained eggs. There were about 700 nests in the whole colony, of which the larger number were black-crowned night herons. The great blues and the night herons occupied the same trees, nesting side by side. The larger nests were built almost entirely in the tops of the sycamores, while the night herons set their platform nests at the very upturned tips of the sycamore's limbs and in the lower surrounding willows and alders.
