LITTLE RED HERON 107 
on it for the eggs, which are large for the bird. When 
one looks down on them they cover and hide the 
slight nest, and being green like the surrounding 
rushes they are not easy to detect. 
When driven up the bird flies eighty or a hundred 
yards away, and drops again amongst the rushes ; 
it is difficult to flush it a second time, and a third 
time it is impossible. A curious circumstance is 
that where it finally settles it can never be found. 
As I could never succeed in getting specimens when 
I wanted them, I once employed some gaucho boys, 
who had dogs trained to hunt flappers, to try for 
this little Heron. They procured several specimens, 
and said that without the aid of their dogs they 
could never succeed in finding a bird, though they 
always marked the exact spot where it alighted. 
This I attributed to the slender figure it makes, and 
to the colour of the plumage so closely assimilating 
to that of the dead yellow and brown-spotted rushes 
always found amongst the green ones; but I did 
not know for many years that the bird possessed a 
marvellous instinct that made its peculiar conforma- 
tion and imitative colour far more advantageous 
than they could be of themselves. 
One day in November when out shooting, I noticed 
a Variegated Heron stealing off quickly through a 
bed of bulrushes, thirty or forty yards from me; 
he was a foot or so above the ground, and went so 
rapidly that he appeared to glide through the rushes 
without touching them. I fired, but afterwards 
ascertained that in my hurry I had missed my aim. 
