CHAPTER XXX. 



As this was 1o he our last <l;iy in the woods, \vc were all 

 content to do lnil little hard work. lirandy Hrook, the 

 usual resort when nothing better oll'ered, still enticing to 

 the Captain, the Senator and the SherilV, because of the 

 mysterious eonduet of its lar^e and comely trout, \vas 

 visited by several of the parly and with the usual success. 

 Tlie Mayor and I, with the strong and willing George Saw- 

 yer as our boatman, went up ('hair Hock Creek, to see a 

 colony ot blue heron- and their remarkable nests. Of 

 the^c latter there were thirteen in the dead, drowned tree- 

 built of -ticks and mud, generally upon the top of a hi>'h 

 stub, like a saucer on the head of a cane. The birds them- 

 Belves, of a blui-h izray color, with their small, slim bodies 

 and IOIILT, thin neck- ; md legs, looked like the dead limbsof 

 the nests ;md the snrronndin.u; trees' that they sat on, (a fact 

 fH-ely olTcred to Darwin); and they had a \\ ay of standing; up 

 in their nests, like sentinels, and. when shot ai, slowly sink- 

 in ii' down until they were invisible. A lucky shot with a 

 "Stevens' Pocket Kitle " a wonderful little weapon with 

 ten inch barrel, and of twenty two rn!Hire at a distance ot 

 lift ecu 01 eighteen rods, brought, one of these birds from il- 

 perch near its nest, a hundred feel from the ground, to the 

 water in which the tree \\ as standing. It came down with 



a tremendous thump and splash, dead. It measured, from 



8 



