Its height is about forty inches, and it is found in nearly all parts of the globe. It is the most common of the French Herons, and the only one which joins its fellows during the breeding season, in order to build their nests and sit on their eggs, and rear their young in company. The place appropriated for this assemblage is generally a clump of lofty trees in the neighbourhood of some large lake or river. On the summits of these trees, or in the angles formed by the branches, the Herons build their nests, which are of very simple construction--a few boughs interwoven together with smaller twigs, and without any additions, such as moss, grass, &c., with which smaller birds love to line their dwellings. In these nests the females lay three or four eggs, and the males share with them the cares of incubation. After the eggs are hatched, the male assists in the nourishment of the young family. Frequently he disgorges into the bills of his young ones the frogs and small fry he has just swallowed; sometimes he divides among them a large fish which he brings from the adjacent lake or the more distant sea-shore. Occasionally they undertake journeys in order to insure abundance for their progeny, and their excursions often extend over a very considerable tract of country. When the young Herons are able to fly, they leave the nest and provide for their own wants. But the time for migration has arrived. About the beginning of August, and always at the same date, the colony, then amounting to five or six hundred individuals, range themselves in order and quit the heronry. The following year they return thither, and their arrival, like their departure, takes place on a regular day. It is remarked that the number of couples is always nearly the same as that of the nests, so that each couple may readily find a resting-place. The new generation must, therefore, have gone to found a fresh colony in some other locality. Heronries are becoming more and more rare. M. Toussenet states that he has met with only one in all France, that at Ecury (Marne), between Epernay and Châlons. They are not uncommon in England, where many ancient families connect the heronry with their ancestral grandeur. Lord Warwick's heronry, on the classic Avon, still maintains seventy or eighty pairs of the noble birds.