Egg size and laying order of snowy egrets, great egrets, and black-crowned night-herons

The authors' objective was to describe egg size in relation to laying order for Great Egrets (Casmerodius albus ), Snowy Egrets (Egretta thula ), and Black-crowned Night-Herons (Nycticorax nycticorax ) in a southern Texas colony and Great Egrets in a southern Florida colony. Based on egg-size patterns in other colonial waterbirds and the occurrence of brood reduction in egrets and herons, they predicted that the final egg laid in a clutch would be smaller than those laid earlier.