A FEATHERED NOTABLE 95 



one day when out with the gun I caught sight of 

 one fishing in the river. It was deep there, and the 

 bird was standing under and close to the bank, 

 where the water came up to his feathered thighs. 

 Moving back from the bank I got within shooting 

 distance and then had a look at him and saw that 

 he was very intently watching the water, with 

 head drawn back and apparently about to strike. 

 And just as I pulled the trigger he struck, and 

 stricken himself at the same moment he threw him- 

 self up into the air and rose to a height of about 

 thirty feet, then fell back to earth close to the 

 margin and began beating with his wings. When I 

 came up he was at his last gasp, and what was my 

 astonishment to find a big fish impaled by his 

 beak. It was an uneatable fish, of a peculiar South 

 American family, its upper part cased in bony 

 plates; an ugly and curious-looking creature called 

 Vieja ("old woman") by the natives. It was a 

 common fish in our stream and a nuisance when 

 caught, as it invariably sucked the hook into its 

 belly. Now I had often found dead " old women " 

 lying on or near the bank with a hole in their bony 

 back and wondered at it. I had concluded that 

 some of the native boys in our neighbourhood had 

 taken to spearing the fish, and naturally these use- 

 less ones they killed were thrown away. Now I 

 knew that they were killed by the heron with a blow 

 of his powerful beak; a serious mistake on the bird^s 

 part, but an inevitable one in the circumstances, 

 since even the shining, piercing eyes of a heron 



