EGRETS, HERONS, ETC. 175 



It is always a treat to see them, stepping lightly 

 over the yielding surface of the rafts of floating 

 weeds, lifting their huge feet, with drooping toes 

 that look like bundles of twigs, high out of the 

 water at every step ; and when they are followed 

 by a troop of sooty, downy fledglings, the picture 

 becomes even more alluring. They rarely come 

 to shore, and when crossing from one pond to 

 another, in place of running over the intervening 

 space like water-hens, they prefer to fly. They 

 present an odd appearance on the wing, owing 

 to the disproportionate size of their feet, which 

 becomes particularly conspicuous when the legs are 

 dropped just before the bird pitches on the surface 

 of the weeds and expands its toes which have 

 been gathered up into a bundle during flight. A 

 very rare visitor to the ponds in Calcutta is the 

 water-pheasant, Hydropliasianus chirurgus, a bird 

 equally astonishing in appearance and voice, looking 

 like a demented silver-pheasant as it floats among 

 the submerged weeds, and makes the air resound 

 with loud mewing cries. 



Every now and then stray specimens of the 

 little cormorant, Phalacrocorax javanicus, take a 

 passing fancy for a garden-pond, and haunt the 

 water and the surrounding trees for a time ; and 

 more rarely a snake-bird, Plotus melanogaster, makes 

 its much more interesting appearance. Both birds 

 sometimes find a pond sufficiently attractive to 



