A COLONY OF HERONS 
SyaiET us now betake ourselves to a 
ASR scene quite different from anything 
in the preceding chapters ; where we 
fae find no brilliant colors, melodious 
graces, and fine flowers; but where, in a lonely 
swamp, black spirits and white, blue spirits 
and gray, hold high and barbarous carnival, 
and travel twenty-four miles a day for their 
meals. Although, in comparison with our 
most familiar land-birds, the majority of water 
fowl are very noiseless—whose song is only in 
the melody of silent, winged motion—the read- 
er may be assured that the transition from 
the foregoing list of fluent and accomplished 
songsters to the night herons will by no means 
be a passage into ‘‘ the silent land.”’ 
The heron family, comprising five species 
known to this region, illustrate a peculiarity 
often found in human households, wherein one 
member has a humor for solitude, while another 
is quite devoted to the world. The night heron 
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