FROM A WIGWAM 79 



tearing sound of a trunk snapped, or a large branch 

 torn off. But the heron sat firm and secure. There 

 were several such crashes, nor was it much to be 

 wondered at, the plantation being full of quite rotten 

 birches that I might almost have pushed over, 

 myself. In a famous gale here, one Sunday, the firs 

 in many of the plantations were blown down in rows 

 and phalanxes, falling all together as they had stood, 

 and all one way, so that, to see them, it looked as 

 though a herd of elephants — or rather mammoths — 

 had rushed through the place. A tin church was 

 carried away, too — but I was in Belgium during all 

 this stirring time. 



A close, firm sitter was this heron, yet not to be 

 compared with White's raven, since the entry of 

 any one into the plantation was sufficient to make 

 her leave the nest.. Unfortunately, the nest almost 

 hid her, as she sat, yet sometimes, as a reward for 

 patience, she would move the head, by which I saw 

 it — or at least the beak — a little more plainly. 

 Sometimes, too, she would crane her neck into 

 the air or even stand up in the nest, which 

 was as if a saint had entered the shrine. When 

 she did this it was always to look at the 

 eggs, and, having done so, she would turn a little 

 round, before sitting down on them again. Very 

 rarely I caught a very low and very hoarse note 

 — monosyllabic, a sort of croak — but silence almost 

 always reigned. At first, when I came to watch the 

 nest, I disturbed the bird each time, and again 

 on leaving : afterwards I used to crawl up to the 

 wigwam, and then retire from it on my hands and 

 knees, and, in this way, did not alarm her. Once 



