The nests are placed in trees along rivers, usually the largest. They are bulky structures of sticks on the highest branches, a dozen or more nests sometimes being built in one tree. In localities destitute of trees the nests are built on rocks. Sycamore trees are favorite resorts of these birds, the light color of the limbs and the peculiar tint of the foliage harmonizing so well with their plumage as to render their presence difficult of detection. The Heron's food consists of fishes, frogs, crawfish, and the like, large quantities of which must be sacrificed to appease its voracious appetite, as many as ten good-sized fishes having been disgorged at one time by a Heron that was in haste to get away, a happy provision of nature which often enables this family of birds to escape from the squirrel hunters and irresponsible gun-carriers. The eggs of this species are plain greenish-blue and three or four in number. The young are without plumes, which develop gradually with maturity. Dr. Neill mentions a curious instance of the Heron feeding on young Water-hens. A large old willow tree has fallen down into the pond, and at the extremity, which is partly sunk in the sludge and continues to vegetate, Water-hens breed. The old male Heron swims out to the nest and takes the young if he can. He has to swim ten or twelve feet, where the water is between two and three feet deep. His motion through the water is slow, but his carriage stately. He has been seen to fell a rat at one blow on the back of the head, when the rat was munching at his dish of fish. While the Heron stands on the water's edge, it remains still as if carved out of rock, with its neck retracted, and its head resting between the shoulders. In this attitude its sober plumage and total stillness render it very inconspicuous, and as it prefers to stand under the shadow of a tree, bush, or bank, it cannot be seen except by a practiced eye, in spite of its large size. The flight of the Heron is grand and stately. The head, body, and legs are held in a line, stiff and immovable, and the gently waving wings carry the bird through the air with a rapidity that seems the effect of magic. [Illustration: GREAT BLUE HERON.] ---- THE GREAT BLUE HERON. I belong to a family that is fast disappearing, simply because my plumes are pretty. The ladies must have them to trim their hats and bonnets, so the plume hunters visit our "rookeries" when our mates are on their nest, and kill hundreds and hundreds of us. Our nests are great flat, bulky affairs, made of sticks and lined with grasses. We build them in high trees along the rivers, or way back in the swamps, a dozen or more in one tree.