Heron Fishing 



CHAPTER IV 



There is a heronry on an estate here, into which, 

 in the early spring, I have sometimes crept, coming 

 before dawn, in silence and darkness, to be there 

 when it awoke. What an awakening ! A sudden 

 scream, as though the night were stabbed, and cried 

 out — a scream to chill one's very blood — followed 

 by a deep " oogh,'' and then a most extraordinary 

 noise in the throat, a kind of croak sometimes, but 

 more often a kind of pipe, like a subdued siren — a 

 fog-signal — yet pleasing, even musical. Sometimes, 

 again, it suggests the tones of the human voice — 

 weirdly, eerily — vividly caught for a moment, then 

 an Ovid's metamorphosis. This curious sound, in 

 the production of which the neck is as the long 

 tube of some metal instrument, is very character- 

 istic, and constantly heard. And now scream after 



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