GREAT BLUE HERON 83 



viding parents. The sight of the latter was the signal 

 for great commotion on the part of the young, who, with 

 craning necks and a ''kek, kek, kek!" rapidly repeated, 

 made wild rushes about the nest. 



With great wing expanse the immense and hand- 

 some parent birds floated on the air currents, as they 

 drew near the nest, and alighted gracefully and gently 

 as a falling autumn leaf. Their departure was of equal 

 charm and free from winged noise. In fact, were it not 

 for the excited, hungry pleadings of the young, as the 

 parents approached, the old birds could have come to the 

 nest and departed without being heard by one concealed 

 within ten feet of it. He who has never had a close-up 

 view of a Big Blue Heron, except in a glass museum case, 

 or behind the wire netting of a park aviary, can form no 

 idea of the real beauty of the big and graceful birds until 

 he comes in contact with them during the rearing of the 

 young. While standing on the edge of the nest with its 

 three full-grown young birds around it, the parent Heron 

 presents a picture of statuesque beauty beheld in no 

 other bird that I have seen. (Fig. 27.) With its plume- 

 crested head and rapier-like bill, its streaming nuptial 

 breast plumes, its graceful neck, trim legs, and shapely 

 body silhouetted against a sky of pure azure, this bird 

 stands out sharply like a clear-cut medallion by a master 

 of his art. However, when the actual feeding process is 

 in full action all graceful lines are broken into a con- 

 fused mass of fluttering wings and jumbling beaks, mixed 

 with what appears to be the agony of death from strangu- 

 lation, and the performance looks like a wrestling match 

 with no holds barred. 



The full-grown young birds are unable to fly after 

 a hearty meal of two pounds of mullet, but they often, 

 in a moment of excitement and fear, disgorge the partly 

 digested fish and thus lightened of their load of ballast, 

 make an awkward but sure getaway. It is not unusual 

 for such young birds to donate their last meal of partly 

 digested fish to the visitor beneath the nest tree. 



These Texas birds were the Wards Heron, a little 

 larger than the usual run of Big Herons, and measuring 

 forty-eight inches, while the ordinary Big Blue Heron 

 measures forty-two inches. 



