148 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



must keep more silent still. For it is watching and listening 

 as only the bird can do that fishes by sound as well as by 

 sight. If it is satisfied, the aigrette, "fit for the turban of a 

 king," droops fiat to its head, the neck is retracted, the wings 

 comfortably closed, and the heron relapses into that beautiful 

 attitude of patient watchfulness that Art delights in. And as 

 it stands there, motionless in misty grey, in the utter silence 

 of the tranquil corner, it looks like one of the jinns of 

 Arabian tales, for its being there seems to bewitch the place 

 and the stream becomes haunted. 



So I remember once how when I was in India lying 

 down in the jungle waiting for a bear to be driven, a 

 sambhur-stag with splendid antlers came spectrally into the 

 open space that my rifie covered. An instant before it was 

 empty. Not a leaf stirred, and yet there, on the sudden, stood 

 the great-horned stag, only a few paces from me, listening to 

 the distant voices of the beaters. An instant later, and it 

 stepped into the jungle again and vanished as silently, com- 

 pletely, as a ghost. And I rubbed my eyes and blinked, but 

 I know that it came and that it went. 



And where, to come back to our heron, is the fisher 

 now ? A minute ago it seemed as if it would never 

 move : a statue in feathers set up there among the forget-me- 

 nots for the stream-folk to worship. But while your eye has 

 been following that fat perch loitering by the side of its 

 shadow, as if they were company for each other, in that little 



