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Mar., ?9o6[ ItERONS AT HOl?IE 39 selves loose from the shell with one foot, while they wrap the long, angular toes of the other about the nearest twig. The next time I sat in the tree-top the place sounded more like a big duck ranch. Above all the squawks of the parents there was a steady quacking clatter of the hundreds of young herons, that never ceased. The sound grew more in- tense in spots, as here and there a mother swept in from the feeding ground and fed her children. As I sat watching, an old blue heron sailed in and lit on a branch above her nest in the adjoining tree. The three youngsters twisted in YOUNG NIGHT HERONS HANGING DEAD 20 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, AND PHOTOGRAPHED EXACTLY AS POUND The left-hand bird has fallen and caught hy its foot in a crotch, thus hanging itself. 'the right-hand bird has merely the chin hooked over the limb; its right foot shows how in the death struggle it was clutching for a limb. Cop. r,-i?.ltl-_'d ecstatic contortions as the mother stepped awkwardly along the limb. Each reached up in full height to grasp her long bill. She sat on the nest, calmly look- ing about. The young continued to catch her long beak and pull it part way down, endeavoring to make her feed them. When she got ready, she disgorged a mess of partially digested fish down the throat of each nestling and left as leisurely as she came. In another case, where the young were older, I saw the mother bird disgorge into the nest. The mass of undigested fish in her craw seemed to form into small portions and come up as the cud of a cow does, and each youngste.r