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Show 1875.] MR. W. H. HUDSON ON THE HABITS OF HERONS. 629 in several months, built two false nests on the water, ten or twelve yards from the shore. It is worthy of notice that the Myopotamus coypus has a similar habit. The Coypus make great burrows in the banks of the watercourses they inhabit, but appear to use them, at least where there are reeds, only as a refuge from danger and to bring forth their young in ; for they also build platforms of reeds and pass the day lying on them. In some watercourses in Patagonia the Coypu (and it is there a third larger than the variety found on the pampas) bas quite dropped the burrowing habit, doubtless on account of the sand and gravel soil, and lives entirely amongst the reeds, the female bringing forth her young on the reed platforms or nests. I will give a fuller account of the little Variegated Heron, Ardetta involucris (Vieill.)*, and particularly of its instinct of self-preservation. The Variegated Heron is a silent solitary bird, frequents the marshy borders of the Plata, and is occasionally found in the reed-beds scattered over the pampas. It breeds amongst the close-growing rushes, and lays three spherical eggs of a rich lively green and beautiful beyond comparison. The nest is a simple platform structure several inches above the water, and so very small that there hardly seems room enough on it for tbe eggs, which are very large for the bird. When one looks down upon them, they cover and almost hide the nest from view, and, furthermore, being green like tbe surrounding rushes, are not easy to discover. When driven from its haunt, the bird flies eighty or a hundred yards off, and drops again amongst tbe rushes ; it is difficult to flush it a second time, but a third impossible. And a very curious circumstance is that it also seems quite impossible to find the bird in the spot where it finally settles. Being found in places where one can only enter on horseback, I could never succeed in shooting specimens when I wanted them, and was obliged to employ some Gancho boys, who had clogs trained to hunt young ducks, to try for the little Heron. They procured me a few specimens, and told me that, without the aid of their dogs, they could never succeed in finding the bird, though they always marked the exact spot where it alighted. This I attributed to the slender figure it makes, and to the colour of the plumage so closely resembling that of the withering yellow and spotted reeds always to be found amongst the green ones; but I did not know for many years that the bird possessed a marvellous * In a paper by Messrs. Sclater and Salvin on Buenos-Ayres birds, published in the Society's 'Proceedings' (1869, p. 034), Ardetta erythremias is given as a synonym of A. involucris; but it is added:-"We are, however, inclined to doubt very much whether this is really the young of A. erythremias, as referred by Bonaparte, Burmeister, and other authors, and prefer waiting for other examples before arriving at a definite conclusion on this point." Closely as the two birds are related in form and colour, the difference in size might well induce a doubt as to their being merely the young and adults of one species. In Buenos Ayres A. involucris is not uncommon, but I have never met with A erythromelas, nor do I believe it ranges so far south. |