In a Heron Village 223 



Francisco Bay is a narrow wooded belt reaching out about 

 a mile, and it is about two hundred yards in width. When 

 we approached this thicket we saw the trees were well 

 loaded with nests. We skirted the edge of the belt, look- 

 ing for an entrance, but to our surprise each place we tried 

 was barred with a perfect mass of tangled bushes and 

 trees. We crawled through in one place for a few feet, 

 but over and through all was a network of poison oak and 

 blackberry that we could not penetrate. There was not 

 the sign of a path. After two hours we went to the point 

 opposite the largest tree and decided to push and cut 

 our way through. The first few yards we crawled on 

 our hands and knees, pushing our cameras or dragging 

 them behind. Unable to crawl further we had to clear 

 a way and climb a ten-foot brush-heap. For a few yards 

 we ducked under and wiggled along in the bed of a ditch 

 in the mire to our knees. I never saw such a tangled mass 

 of brush. Fallen limbs and trees of alder, swamp-maple 

 and willow were interlaced with blackberry brier, poison 

 oak, and the rankest growth of nettles. All the while 

 we were assailed by an Increasing mob of starving mos- 

 quitoes that went raving mad at the taste of blood. We 

 pushed on, straining, sweating, crawling, and climbing 

 for a hundred yards that seemed more like a mile. 



We forgot it all the minute we stood under the largest 

 sycamore. It was seven feet thick at the base and difficult 

 to climb. But this was the centre of business activity in 

 the heron village. The monster was a hundred and twenty 

 feet high, and had a spread of limbs equal to its height. 

 In this single tree we counted forty-one blue heron nests 

 and twenty-eight Night Heron {Nycticorax nycticora^ 



