THE ESTUARY 1 47 



by some lonely pool, when he would seem to collect 

 himself and fly away. Whether his designs were to 

 obtain food, or whether he was tired of life, and was 

 meditatin<i: an excursion into the unknown, who shall 

 say ? Occasionally we saw him in the daytime, but 

 most often in this lonely way at sunset. 



In this same river near the Knysna Lakes, which 

 was some twenty or thirty miles from the town of 

 Knysna itself, I saw a party of Night Herons ; they 

 flew with a slow, laboured flight out of a thick bush 

 which overhung the river, and then settled again on a tree 

 a little way further up. They looked ungainly creatures, 

 and out of place, perched upon the branches of a tree, 

 but they seemed to be able to retain their footing at a 

 considerable angle ; after a while they gradually dis- 

 persed themselves to more convenient pcrching-places 

 in the deeper recesses of the wood ; they evidently 

 disliked coming out into the bright sunshine. There 

 were three or four old birds and perhaps as many young 

 ones, the latter being coloured a greyish-brown, while 

 the dark green plumage on the head and backs of 

 the old birds was plainly visible as they flew. The 

 gentleman with whom I was staying at the time told 

 me that they always rested during the daytime in the 

 thick bush from which we put them up, but that at 

 dusk they would fly down to the lake to feed. It was 

 refreshing to get some information that I could rely 

 on after our experiences of the last few weeks. The 

 Knysna and George Lakes form an almost continuous 

 chain of water for many miles between those two places, 

 separating the cliffs which constitute the sea coast on 

 the one hand, from the high land where the forest 

 begins, on the other. 



