BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 147 



who would pull a trigger upon a heron. The admiration 

 of Nature is very sincere in the educated Englishmen of 

 to-day, and by far the greater number of them would rather 

 see the beautiful creature making their estate its home than 

 kill it. It is, indeed, the very genius of beautiful solitude, 

 and by its mere presence raises the commonplace to the 

 picturesque. 



Take a secluded bend of any stream, with its alders and 

 willows, its wild flowers stealing down to the water's edge to 

 see their faces in the glass, and yellow flags boldly wading 

 out by their companies and battalions into mid-stream. 

 The dragon-flies poise upon the tips of the reeds, or with 

 rusding wings dart and wheel upon the water, puzzling the 

 coot's flotilla of puff-balls paddling about among the water- 

 daisies. The scene is sweetly pretty, and when on a sudden 

 a kingfisher on sapphire wings comes flashing past, enhancing 

 every charm by its transient brilliance, the pretty becomes 

 lovely, and the little common reach of water catches a olimose 

 of fairyland possibilities, and of beauties something rarer than 

 of every clay. Then let a heron on its broad slow-movino- 

 wings come up the stream, and lo ! the whole scene changes. 

 It becomes at once unfamiliar, of another world, exotic. 

 The heron's long legs are dropped down, the long neck 

 stretched out and, almost as a spectre might appear, there 

 stands " the bird so gaunt," its crest-feathers slightly raised, 

 its eyes scrutinising the banks. Silent as the great bird is, you 



