172 OUR RARER BIRDS 



the landscape with a lurid glare, the big birds fly lazily up 

 from all points of the compass, gorged with food, to their 

 roosting - place amongst the tall trees. In winter they 

 generally sleep in fir woods, but in summer deciduous trees 

 are just as often selected — usually those in which they have 

 built their nests. The woods where the Herons roost are a 

 stirring animated scene at nightfall. As you stand beneath 

 the lofty trees, hidden amongst the tall underwood, the birds 

 are seen flying silently across the clear western sky, and the 

 crashing of the branches in all directions tells you that the 

 Herons are settling down for the night. Their big forms may 

 be seen amongst the branches overhead, and the slightest 

 movement on your part will send them scurrying out again 

 into the evening gloom. Sometimes two birds quarrel and 

 come fluttering^ down the trees almost to the o-round ere thev 

 separate and fly away. The Heron is early astir in the 

 morning, and is off to seek his breakfast before the sun is 

 well above the eastern horizon. Sometimes when a bird has 

 been fishing a long way from home and is overtaken by night, 

 he sleeps on the water-side. When the moon is at the full, 

 and the nights are almost as light as day, the Heron stays out 

 to fish ; and I have often watched them standing motionless 

 in the water, fishing as patiently and diligently as in the 

 daytime. 



Few birds are so silent as the Heron. When hurriedly 

 flushed or surprised in some quiet corner of the waters, it 

 often utters a hoarse croaking sound ; but its usual note, 

 given forth as it flies through the air, is a loud trumpet kind 

 of scream, short and deep in tone. When angry or alarmed 

 I have known it make a loud snapping noise with its beak. 

 Its voice sounds particularly weird and mysterious from a 

 midnight sky, or in the gloom of evening, as the birds fly high 

 in air to the distant roosting-place. The food of the Heron 

 is largely composed of fish, those from salt as well as fresh 



