Some American millionaires are said to sleep for only three hours out of the twenty-four. I do not believe this; I regard the story as a fabrication of the halfpenny paper. But, even if it be true, the night heron (Nycticorax griseus) is able to eclipse the performance. That bird only sleeps when it has nothing better to do. It looks upon sleep as a luxury, not a necessity. As its name implies, it is a creature of the night; but it is equally a day bird. You will never catch it napping. Just before sunset, when the crows, wearied by the iniquities they have wrought during the day, are wending their way to the corvine dormitory, the night herons sally forth from the trees (“roosts” would be a misnomer for them) in which they have spent the day and betake themselves, in twos and threes, to the water’s edge. As they fly they make the welkin ring with their cries of waak, waak, or quaal, quaal—sounds which may be likened to the quacking of a distressed duck. Having arrived at their feeding-ground, they separate and proceed to catch fish and frogs in the manner of the orthodox heron. After an all-night sitting, or rather standing, in shallow water, they return to their day quarters, where they are popularly supposed to sleep. They may possibly spend the day in slumber when they have neither nests to build nor young to feed. I am not in a position to deny this, never having visited a heronry on such an occasion. I speak, however, as one having authority when I say that all through the nesting season the night heron works harder during the hours of daylight than the British workman does. At the present time (April) thirty or forty night herons are engaged in nesting operations in the tall trees that grow on the islands in the ornamental pond that graces the Lahore Zoological Gardens, and as I visit those gardens almost daily I have had some opportunity of observing the behaviour of our night bird during the daytime. I may here say that night herons seem very partial to Zoological Gardens, inasmuch as they also resort to the Calcutta “Zoo” for nesting purposes. This is, of course, as it should be. Every well-conditioned bird should bring up its family in a “zoo” by preference. Had birds the sense to understand this, many of them would be spared the miseries of captivity.

Before discoursing upon its nesting habits it is fitting that I should try to describe the night heron, so that the bird may be recognised when next seen. I presume that everyone knows what a heron looks like, but possibly there exist persons who would be at a loss to say wherein it differs from a stork or a crane. It may be readily distinguished from the latter by its well-developed hind toe. Storks and herons are perching waders, while cranes do not trust themselves to trees because they cannot perch, having no hind toe to grasp with. The heron’s bill is flatter and more dagger-shaped than that of a stork. Moreover the former possesses, inside the middle claw, a little comb, which the stork lacks. The heron flies with neck drawn in, head pressed against the back, and beak pointing forwards. It never sails in the air, but progresses, like the flying-fox, with a steady, continuous flapping motion. So much for herons in general. To those who would learn more of these and other long-legged fowls I commend Mr. Frank Finn’s excellent little book, entitled How to Know the Indian Waders.

The night heron is considerably smaller than the common heron—the heron we see in England, and larger than the Indian paddy bird—the ubiquitous fowl that looks brown when it is standing and white when it is flying. The head and back of the night heron are black, the remainder of the upper plumage is grey, the lower parts are white. There are two or three long, white, narrow feathers, which grow from the back of the head and hang down like a pigtail. The eye is rich ruby-red. Young night herons are brown with yellowish spots, and the eye is deep yellow.

Any resident of Madras may see this species if he repair to the Redhills Tank. One of the islands in that tank supports a considerable population of night herons and little cormorants. The former nest in the trees on the island in July. The place is well worth visiting then. As the boat carrying a human being approaches the islet, all the night herons fly away without a sound. They love their young, but not so much as they love themselves, so they leave their offspring at the first approach of the human visitor and remain away until he turns his back on their nesting-ground. A night heron never allows his valour to get the better of his discretion. The nest is a platform of twigs placed anywhere in a tree. Four pale greenish-blue eggs are laid. A heronry is a filthy place. The possessors are, like our Indian brethren, utterly regardless of the principles of sanitation. The whole island will be found white with the droppings of the birds, and the unsavoury smell that emanates therefrom would do credit to a village inhabited by chamars. Although they are evil-tempered, cantankerous creatures, night herons always nest in company. It is no uncommon thing to find half a dozen nests in the same tree, so that the sitting birds are able to compare notes while engaged in the duties of incubation. Both the parent birds take part in nest construction, and, as they work by day, it is quite easy to watch the process. They wrench small branches from trees, and, as they have only the beak with which to grasp these, they find twig-gathering hard work. When a twig has been secured it is dropped on to the particular part of the tree in which the bird has thought fit to build. Forty or fifty twigs dropped haphazard in a heap constitute the nest. The birds make a great noise while engaged in building. Quarrels are of frequent occurrence. It sometimes happens that two birds want the same twig; this invariably gives rise to noisy altercation. The crows too are provocative of much bad language on the part of the night herons. Whenever any of the crows of the neighbourhood has nothing else to do, he says to a kindred spirit: “Come, let us worry the night herons.” Whereupon the pair—Arcades ambo—go and pretend to show the herons how to build a nest.

When, my friends, you consider the untidiness and filthiness of the heron’s nest, you will be able to appreciate to the full the audacity of the latest falsehood circulated by the plume trade—to wit, the egret plucks out its nuptial plumes, which constitute the “osprey” of commerce, and weaves these into the nest to make it more cosy; and, after the young ones are fledged, some honest fellow visits the nest and disentangles the plumes therefrom!

A baby heron is a disgustingly ugly creature. It is a living caricature. Patches of long hair-like feathers are studded, apparently haphazard, over its otherwise naked body and give it an indescribably grotesque appearance. It looks like a bird in its dotage. If you lift a young heron out of the nest you will probably find that his “corporation” is distended to bursting-point, and, if you do not handle him carefully, a half-digested frog will, as likely as not, drop out of him!

The farther north one goes the earlier in the year does the night heron breed. In Kashmir the nesting season is in full swing in March. In the Punjab April and May are the nesting months; in Madras the birds do not begin to build until July; and I have seen eggs at the end of August. It is my belief that the night heron is a migratory bird. During the winter months not a single specimen of that species is to be seen in or about Lahore, but they migrate there regularly every April. They disappear again to I know not where when they have reared up their young.