April 



question had no more the ''build" of a duck 

 than of an owl ; but I soon rallied sufficiently to 

 ask him if ducks roost in trees. This flank fire 

 routed him, and, recovering my self-respect, I 

 applied to a more infallible source of scientific 

 information — the Natural History Museum — and 

 found the bird to be a black-crowned night 

 heron. 



Lest any one, wise in the ways of birds, should 

 accuse me of an egregious slip in ornithological 

 lore, I hasten to confess that ducks sometimes 

 do roost in trees ; indeed, one species finds its 

 nest in the holes of trees. Yet I was fully justi- 

 fied in the bold front I presented to this guar- 

 dian of the peace. I challenged him w4th the 

 rule — the only weapon that a person of his sci- 

 entific attainments could safely use. An excep- 

 tio?i is always a dangerous article in the hands 

 of the inexperienced. 



The herons are one of several mournfully 

 poetic families of birds that gracefully adorn 

 many a landscape, real and pictured. The 

 largest and most elegant of this family are the 

 great blue and the great white herons, found 

 here and there in the vicinity of water, either 

 singly or in small flocks. The night heron, a 

 pair of which remained several weeks near the 



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