322 Heron-shooting. 



After a very dry season the level of the water is so 

 much reduced that in the broadest (and shallowest) 

 part the actual strand where the water begins is a 

 hundred yards or more from the nearest hedge. This 

 is just what the heron likes, because no one can ap- 

 proach him over that flat expanse of dried mud with- 

 out being immediately detected. I have seen as many 

 as eight herons standing together in a row on one 

 such narrow sandbank in the daytime, in regular order 

 like soldiers : there were six more on adjacent islands. 

 The}^ were not feeding simply standing motionless. 

 As soon as it grew dark they dispersed, and ventured 

 then down the lake to those places near which foot- 



But although the night seems the heron's principal 

 feeding time, he frequently fishes in the day. Gen- 

 erally, his long neck enables him to see danger, but 

 not always. Several times I have come right on a 

 heron, when the banks of the brook were high and the 

 bushes thick, before he has seen me, so as to be for 

 the moment within five yards. His clumsy terror is 

 quite ludicrous : try how he will he cannot fly fast at 

 starting ; he requires fifty yards to get properly under 

 way. 



What a contrast with the swift snipe, that darts 

 off at thirty miles an hour from under your feet ! 

 The long hanging legs, the stretched-out neck, the 

 wide wings and body, seem to offer a mark which no 

 one could possibly miss : yet, with an ordinary gun 

 and snipe shot, I .have had a heron get away safely 

 like this more than once. You can hear the shot 

 rattle up against him, and he utters a strange, 

 harsh, screeching ' quaack,' and works his wings 



