A GREAT BLUE HERON. 201 
my steps, being now highly curious to see 
how near the fellow I could get. At this 
he broke into a kind of dog-trot, very com- 
ical to witness, and, if I had not previously 
seen him fly a few yards, I should have 
supposed him disabled in the wing. Dr. 
Brewer, by the way, says that this bird is 
“never known to run, or even to walk 
briskly;”’ but such negative assertions are 
always at the maker’s risk. 
_ He picked up his legs at last, for I pressed 
him closer and closer, till there could not 
have been more than forty or fifty feet be- 
tween us; but even then he settled down 
again beside another pool, only a few rods 
further on in the same meadow, and there 
I left him to pursue his frog-hunt unmo- 
lested. The ludicrousness of the whole 
affair was enhanced by the fact, already 
mentioned, that the ground was perfectly 
flat, and absolutely without vegetation, ex- 
cept for the long rows of newly planted cran- 
berry vines. As to what could have influ- 
enced the bird to treat me thus strangely, I 
have no means of guessing. As we say of 
each other’s freaks and oddities, it was his 
way, 1 suppose. He might have behaved 
