The Rambles of an Idler 



there are other birds awake to which it matters 

 little what is the hour by the clock. Light or 

 dark, they are equally wide awake and that 

 weird Quok! we hear in the "wee sma' hours" 

 is the cry of one such bird, the night heron. 

 They are abundant here and so too is the little 

 green, the great blue, and both the greater and 

 less bittern. It is well nigh useless to peer into 

 the sky when we hear the strange cries they 

 utter. Unless they cross the face of the full 

 moon, you will almost never see them. Such, 

 at least, has been my experience. Quok! Quok! 

 and the sound, the darkness, the momentary 

 silence following the fading out of the land- 

 marks, all these make for us a new world, but 

 not one to be dreaded. 



I cannot account for that disposition in man 

 to invest what they call ' l strange ' ' sounds with 

 all manner of uncanny attributes. A heron is 

 as harmless as a caged canary, and yet because 

 its cry, Quok, is harsh, guttural, startling, a 

 sound that commands attention immediately, 

 those who hear it for the first time imagine end- 

 less absurdities, and if they never believed in 

 ghosts before, lean to a belief in that direction 

 now. Call the cry of the heron all the ugly 



158 



