THE WOUNDED HEEON 107 



midst of the swamp. He stole through the 

 rushes and the alders till he reached a spot 

 close to the lake ; and thence he watched the 

 bird intently. 



She was in company with another heron, and 

 waded hither and thither catching frogs. Now 

 and again her mate — as the stranger ultimately 

 proved to be — deferentially approached her and 

 offered a frog or some other tit-bit he had just 

 secured, which she invariably accepted with a 

 slight display of condescension, as if his regard 

 for her, though not exactly unwelcome, was an 

 every-day matter of trifling importance. Renoult 

 noted the strange, clumsy methods by which the 

 male bird paid court — the wheeling, drooping 

 flights, the lowering of the head and the elevation 

 of the crest, the soft, caressing touch of 'the 

 powerful beak on her slate-coloured breast, and 

 the quick retreat as she, half in play, half in 

 earnest, struck at him when his attentions 

 lacked due ceremony. The Norman boy, accus- 

 tomed to think of the heron as the falcon's 

 prey, an object most particularly associated 

 with hoods and jesses, bells and gloves and 

 lures, the use of which had been familiar to 

 him since his earliest infancy, found that new 

 interest had awakened in his mind ; and was 

 possessed by a vague wonderment that the 

 intelligent creatures before him, almost human 



