64 THE STORY OF THE BIRDS 



Boat-bill (Cancroma). As a group the Herons 

 are semi-aquatic, and frequent lakes, rivers, 

 swamps, and morasses, and the flat sea-coasts. 

 They are birds of powerful if somewhat laboured 

 flight, and walk with ease and grace. Their 

 notes are harsh and guttural, and singularly 

 weird and booming in the Bitterns. They feed 

 on fish, small mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, 

 crustaceans, worms, and molluscs. Their usually 

 bulky nests, made of sticks, rushes, grass, leaves, 

 and roots, are either placed on trees or cliffs 

 or amongst the dense vegetation of the swamps 

 and marshes. The eggs are generally bluish- 

 green, but white in some cases and brown in 

 others. Many of these birds are exceptionally 

 graceful, being adorned either constantly or 

 during the nuptial season with mazy plumes 

 and long pendent crests and gorgets ; others 

 are of brilliant green or brown or black, in 

 some cases loricated with metallic sheen. The 

 Spoonbills and the Ibises are very similar in 

 their economy to the Herons, but the eggs are 

 of a different type, especially in the former. 

 The Storks again form a small group quite 

 apart from the rest of the order. The typical 

 Storks bear resemblance to the Herons in gene- 

 ral appearance. One of their most salient 



