SAND DUNES AND SALT MARSHES 



marshes, especially on the muddy edges of 

 the creeks at low tide, where the hunting is 

 good. As it stands or walks it may draw 

 in its head until it appears to have no neck, 

 or it may extend it as long as its body. If 

 one has ever blown a blade of grass stretched 

 tightly between the thumbs side by side, one 

 will recognize the voice of this bird, which 

 mimics exactly the music of the grass 

 blade. 



The night heron, half as large again as the 

 green heron, is a familiar bird in these re- 

 gions. Although, as its name would imply, 

 it is largely a bird of the night, yet, when it 

 has insatiable young in the nest clamoring for 

 food, it must needs work by day. Indeed at 

 all seasons it is commonly seen by day, but, 

 when the young shift for themselves, it gen- 

 erally spends the hours of light in slothful 

 ease, dozing in companies on the tops of 

 bushes or trees. At dusk it is all alert, and 

 flies to the beach and the marshes, squawking 

 as it goes. It delights most in the lowest tides, 

 for then it can fish in the pools and meander- 

 ing streams of the sand flats. As one pushes 

 a canoe along a winding creek in the darkness 

 and silence of the night, there is nothing more 



230 



