Florida; but on several occasions met with some on small ponds in the pine barrens, at a considerable distance from any large stream, whither they had been attracted by the great number of frogs. The flight of the Blue Heron is rather swifter than that of the Egret, _Ardea candidissima_, and considerably more so than that of the Great Blue Heron, _Ardea Herodias_, but very similar to that of the Louisiana Heron, _Ardea Ludoviciana_. When the bird is travelling, the motion is performed by flappings in quick succession, which rapidly propel it in a direct line, until it is about to alight, when it descends in circular sailings of considerable extent towards the spot selected. During strong adverse winds, they fly low, and in a continuous line, passing at the necessary distance from the shores to avoid danger, whether at an early or a late hour of the day. I recollect that once, on such an occasion, when, on the 15th of March, I was in company with my friend JOHN BACHMAN, I saw a large flock about sunset arising from across the river, and circling over a large pond, eight miles distant from Charleston. So cautious were they, that although the flock was composed of several hundred individuals, we could not manage to get so much as a chance of killing one. I have been surprised to see how soon the Blue Herons become shy after reaching the districts to which they remove for the purpose of breeding from their great rendezvous the Floridas, where I never experienced any difficulty in procuring as many as I wished. In Louisiana, on the other hand, I have found them equally vigilant on their first arrival. On several occasions, when I had placed myself under cover, to shoot at some, while on their way to their roosts or to their feeding grounds, I found it necessary to shift from one place to another, for if one of them had been fired at and had fallen in a particular place, all that were in its company took care not to pass again near it, but when coming up diverged several hundred yards, and increased their speed until past, when they would assume their more leisurely flappings. In South Carolina, where they are very shy on their arrival, I have seen them fly off on hearing the very distant report of a gun, and alight on the tops of the tallest trees, where they would congregate in hundreds, and whence they would again fly off on the least apprehension of danger. But when once these Herons have chosen a place to nestle in, or reached one in which they bred the preceding year, they become so tame as to allow you to shoot as many as you are disposed to have.