April 
question had no more the ‘‘ build’’ of a duck 
than of an owl ; but I soon rallied sufficiently to 
ask him if ducks roost in trees. This flank fire 
routed him, and, recovering my self-respect, I 
applied to a more infallible source of scientific 
information—the Natural History Museum—and 
found the bird to be a black-crowned night 
heron. 
Lest any one, wise in the ways of birds, should 
accuse me of an egregious slip in ornithological 
lore, I hasten to confess that ducks sometimes 
do roost in trees; indeed, one species finds its 
nest in the holes of trees. Yet I was fully justi- 
fied in the bold front I presented to this guar- 
dian of the peace. I challenged him with the 
rule—the only weapon that a person of his sci- 
entific attainments could safely use. An excep- 
tion is always a dangerous article in the hands 
of the inexperienced. 
The herons are one of several mournfully 
poetic families of birds that gracefully adorn 
many a landscape, real and pictured. Lhe 
largest and most elegant of this family are the 
great blue and the great white herons, found 
here and there in the vicinity of water, either 
singly or in small flocks. The night heron, a 
pair of which remained several weeks near the 
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