Frank the Heron 
Though he is such an imposing figure 
now, he started life in a very comical 
and undignified form. First of all, of 
course, he was enclosed in an egg. 
This was of a beautiful blue colour all 
over, and five of these lay in the middle 
of a great coarse nest made of sticks and 
dry sedges at the very top of a fir-tree, 
ina wood. On the neighbouring trees, 
some firs and others oaks, are more 
nests, each containing four or five pale- 
blue eggs, and on the dead boughs near 
are standing, sometimes on one leg, the 
parent herons, while others are sitting 
on their nests, and some are flying off 
or returning from their fishing excursions. 
It is quite early in the year, in March, 
when the oak-trees are still bare, and 
the cold wind whistles through the leaf- 
less branches. Such a commotion there 
168 
