While the limy deposits and partially digested fish dropped by the birds seemed not to affect the growth of the lower vegetation, it had a marked influence on certain of the swamp maples, the development of the trees which held a number of nests being so retarded that, although it was June 13th, they were as yet only in blossom.^{38} The comparative absence of foliage permitted one to have a far better view of what was going on above than if the trees had been thickly leaved, and on entering the rookery our attention was at once attracted by the nearly grown Herons, who, old enough to leave the nest, had climbed out on the adjoining limbs. There, silhouetted against the sky, they crouched in family groups of two, three, and four.^{39} [Illustration: 38. Five Herons’ nests in swamp maple, at an average height of seventy feet. The upper right-hand nest with young shown in Nos. 41 and 42.] [Illustration: 39. A view in the Heron rookery, looking upward from the ground to nests and young, about eighty feet above.] Other broods, inhabitants of more thickly leaved trees, made known their presence above by disgorging a half-digested eel, which dropped with a thud at our feet and occasionally nearer, suggesting the advisability of carrying an umbrella. The vegetation beneath the well-populated trees was as white as though it had been liberally daubed with whitewash, and the ground was strewn with blue-green eggshells neatly broken in two across the middle; fish, principally eels, in various stages of digestion and decay; and the bodies of young birds who had met with an untimely death by falling from above. It was not altogether a savory place! [Illustration: 40. Black-crowned Night Herons feeding. Telephoto, × 2 at a distance of about one hundred and fifty feet.] Seating ourselves at the base of an unoccupied tree, we had not long to wait before the normal life of the rookery was resumed. The young, who while we were observed had been silent, now began to utter a singular, froglike _kik-kik-kik_ in chorus, and the old birds one by one returned. When food was brought an increased outcry was heard from the expectant youngsters about to be fed. At intervals a resounding _thump_ announced the fall of some too eager bird, but, in the cases which we investigated, the Heron, if fairly well grown, seemed to be little the worse for his tumble of from fifty to seventy feet, and with lowered head ran through the undergrowth with surprising quickness. With those which were younger, however, the mortality had evidently been great, and, seeing the dozens of dead birds on the ground beneath the nest trees from which they had fallen, one questioned whether this habit of nesting high in trees had not, for protective reasons, been recently acquired by a species the young of which would seem much more at home nearer the ground. [Illustration: 41. Young Night Herons in nest. Same as No. 42.]