86 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



was always a little water where the eel was dropped 

 — it was not the shore, to be quite accurate, but 

 only the shallow, muddy water near it — and there- 

 fore it was only on one occasion that I saw the foot 

 used in this way, with absolute certainty. But as I 

 did see it this once, I cannot doubt that it was so 

 used each time, as indeed it always appeared to me 

 to be. It is the inner side of each of the two claws 

 that is serrated, and one can imagine how nicely an eel, 

 or fish, thus dropped into the mud, could be pinched 

 between them. This, then, is affirmative evidence. 

 Negatively, I have seen the heron preen itself very 

 elaborately, without once raising a foot so as to 

 touch the feathers. On these occasions the bird 

 often, apparently, does something to its feet, with the 

 beak, what, exactly, it is difficult to say, inasmuch 

 as a heron's feet are hardly ever visible, except while 

 it walks. But the head is brought right down, and 

 then moves slightly, yet nicely, as a hand might 

 that held some long, fine instrument, with which a 

 delicate operation was being performed. Were the 

 extreme tip of the bill to be passed between the 

 serratures of the claw, the motion would be just like 

 this, at least I should think it would. 



People about here talk of a filament which they 

 say grows out of one of the heron's toes, and by 

 looking like a worm in the water, attracts fish within 

 his reach, in the same way as does the lure of the 

 angler-fish. In Bury, once, seeing a heron — a sad 

 sight — hanging up in a fishmonger's shop, I looked 

 at its feet, but did not notice any filament. This, 

 indeed, was before I had heard the legend, but my 

 idea is that it has sprung .up in accordance with the 

 popular view that the heron always waits, " like 



