CHAPTER XIV 

 THE HERON 



FIXED routine and regularity of habit are generally 

 regarded as features peculiar to a certain section of 

 humanity, and it is customary to look upon our 

 wild birds and beasts as unfettered by any regulations 

 of time and place, boundlessly free, and wandering 

 haphazard without social or personally-inflicted obligation. 

 Chiefly on these grounds captive birds and beasts come 

 in for a good deal of misplaced pity, for our sensitive 

 imaginations picture them in a state of mental rebellion 

 against the stereotyped sameness of the lives that are 

 then their lot. Few people know, or at any rate realize, 

 that by far the majority of wild creatures wander no 

 further than they are compelled for food. Freedom and 

 captivity — omitting that part of it into which the fear 

 of man enters — have absolutely no meaning to them. 

 Food and warmth, and the satisfying of their natural 

 desires, are all the major portion of them ask of God or 

 man, and when it is possible for a bird or beast in a wild 

 state to set itself a regular routine, travelHng as short 

 a distance as possible between its sleeping and its feeding 

 quarters and at regular intervals, it is only too happy to 

 do so. In other words the home range of a bird or beast 

 is no larger than necessity demands, and if, within a given 

 half acre, it were able to find all it needed, it would never 

 wander beyond that half acre. In the mating season a 

 period of extreme restlessness naturally assails our captive 

 birds and animals, and their frantic endeavours to escape, 



215 



