A GEEAT BLUE HERON. 



" Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness ? " 



SHAKESPEARE. 



THE watcher of birds in the bush soon 

 discovers that they have individual as well 

 as race characteristics. They are not 

 things, but persons, beings with intellect, 

 affections, and will, and a strong specific 

 resemblance is found to be consistent with 

 no small measure of personal variation. All 

 robins, we say, look and act alike. But so 

 do all Yankees ; yet it is part of every Yan- 

 kee's birthright to be different from every 

 other Yankee. Nature abhors a copy, it 

 would seem, almost as badly as she abhors 

 a vacuum. Perhaps, if the truth were 

 known, a copy is a vacuum. 



I walked down the bay shore of Cape Cod 

 one summer morning, and at a certain point 

 climbed the steep cliff to the railway track, 

 meaning to look into a large cranberry 

 meadow where, on previous visits, I had 



