8o BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



in the wigwam, her suspicions soon ceased, and she 

 returned to the nest, usually from sailing high over 

 the plantation, evidently on the watch, but, sheltered 

 as I was, I was invisible even to her keen sight. On 

 one occasion she flew out over the marshlands, and 

 went down upon them. I left the plantation 

 almost at the same time as she did, and, on my way 

 home, I saw her rise and fly towards it again. Half- 

 way there she was joined by her mate, and the two 

 descended upon it, together, most grandly — a really 

 striking sight. Slowly they sailed up, on broad light 

 wings that beat the air with regular and leisurely 

 strokes. Mounting higher and higher, as they 

 neared the plantation, they, at length, wheeled over 

 it at a giddy height, from which, after a few great 

 circling sweeps, they all at once let themselves drop, 

 holding their wings still spread,, but raised above 

 their backs, so as not to off^er so much resistance to 

 the air. At the proper moment the wide wings 

 drooped again, the rushing fall was checked, and with 

 harsh, wild screams, the two great birds came wheel- 

 ing down, in narrower and narrower circles, upon the 

 chosen spot. Perhaps the swoop of an eagle may 

 be grander than this, but I doubt it. The drop, 

 especially, gives one, in imagination, the same sort of 

 half-painful sensation that the descent part of a 

 switchback railway does, when one is in it — for one 

 substitutes oneself for the bird, but retains one's own 

 constitution. 



Earlier in the year — in cold bleak February — I 

 used to watch this same pair of herons pursuing one 

 another, in nuptial flight, over the half-sandy, half- 

 marshy wastes, that, with the moorland, lie about the 



