406 



ARDEIDJE. 



plains, it is enabled to vie with, them in rising into the 

 air, and thus often eludes them. 



The Heron, though it neither swims nor dives, is, never- 

 theless a fisher, and a successful one, but a fisher in rivers 

 and shallow waters only, to human anglers a very pattern 

 of patience and resignation. Up to its knees in water, 



motionless as a stone, with the neck slightly stretched out, 

 and the eye steadily fixed, but wide awake to the motion 

 of any thing that has life, the Heron may be seen in the 

 ford of a river, the margin of a lake, in a sea-side pool, 

 or on the bank of an estuary, a faultless subject for the 

 photographer. Suddenly the head is shot forward with 



