Page:The birds of America, Volume 6.djvu/191

Rh feeds, when it strikes it, and immediately swallows it, if not too large; but if so, it carries it to the shore, beats it, and tears it to pieces, rarely, how- ever, using its feet for that purpose, and certainly never employing its pectinated claws, which no Heron that I know of ever uses for any other object than that of scratching its head, or perhaps of securing its steps on rocky bottoms. These birds remain on the flats thus employed, until the advance of the tide forces them to the land.

The flight of this Heron is more elevated and regular than that of the smaller species. During the love season, it is peculiarly graceful and elegant, especially when one unmated male is pursuing another, a female being in sight. They pass through the air with celerity, turn and cut about in curious curves and zigzags, the stronger bird frequently erecting its beautiful crest, and uttering its note, at the moment when it expects to give its rival a thrust. When these aerial combats take place between old and immature birds, their different colours form a striking contrast, extremely pleasing to the beholder. While travelling to and from their feeding grounds, or from one key to another, they propel themselves by easy, well-sustained, and regular flappings of their extended wings, the neck reposing on the shoulders, the legs stretched out behind like a rudder, while their beautiful thready trains float in the breeze. On approaching a landing place, they seldom fail to perform a few circumvolutions, in order to see that all around is quiet, for they are more shy and wary than the smaller Herons, and almost as suspicious as the two larger species, Ardea occidentalism and «/?. Herodias; and this becomes apparent as soon as they discontinue the feeding of their young, when you find it extremely difficult to approach them. After this period I rarely shot one, unless I happened to come upon it unawares, or while it was passing over me when among the mangroves.

About the beginning of April, these Herons begin to pair. The males chase each other on the ground, as well as in the air, and on returning to their chosen females erect their crest and plumes, swell out their necks, pass and repass before them, and emit hollow rough sounds, which it is impossible for me to describe. It is curious to see a party of twenty or thirty on a sand-bar, presenting as they do a mixture of colours from pure white to the full hues of the old birds of either sex; and still more curious perhaps it is to see a purple male paying his addresses to a white female, while at hand a white male is caressing a purple female, and not far off are a pair of white, and another of purple birds. Nay, reader, until I had witnessed these remarkable circumstances, I felt some distrust respecting the statement of the worthy pilot. I am even now doubtful if all the young breed the first spring after their birth, and am more inclined to think that they do not, on account of the large flocks of white birds of this species which during the