72 ALONG THE HILLSBOROUOH. 



ment well, there are times when a heron's 

 strength is to stand still. Certainly he 

 seemed in no danger of overeating. A 

 cracker told me that the major made an 

 excellent dish if killed on the full of the 

 moon. I wondered at that qualification, 

 but my informant explained himself. The 

 bird, he said, feeds mostly at night, and 

 fares best with the moon to help him. If 

 the reader would dine off roast blue heron, 

 therefore, as I hope I never shall, let him 

 mind the lunar phases. But think of the 

 gastronomic ups and downs of a bird that is 

 fat and lean by turns twelve times a year ! 

 Possibly my informant overstated the case ; 

 but in any event I would trust the major to 

 bear himself like a philosopher. If there is 

 any one of God's creatures that can wait for 

 what he wants, it must be the great blue 

 heron. 



I have spoken of his caution. If he was 

 patrolling a shallow on one side of an 

 oyster-bar, at the rate, let us say, of two 

 steps a minute, and took it into his head 

 (an inappropriate phrase, as conveying an 

 idea of something like suddenness) to try 

 the water on the other side, he did not 



