102 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



One need not take it for granted that these strange 

 vocal noises are nothing but love calls. They may 

 be in part expressions of anger, since it is hardly 

 to be believed that the members of these rude com- 

 munities invariably respect one another's rights. 

 We see how it is with the rook, which has a more 

 developed social instinct than the lonely savage 

 heron. 



During incubation quiet reigns in the heronry; 

 when the young .are out, especially when they are 

 well grown and ravenously hungry all day long, 

 the wood is again filled with the uproar; and a 

 noisier heronry than the one I am describing could 

 not have been found. For one thing, it was situated 

 on the very edge of the wood, overlooking the green 

 flat expanse towards Breydon Water, where the 

 parent birds did most of their fishing, so that the 

 returning birds were visible from the tree-tops at 

 a great distance, travelling slowly with eel and 

 frog and fish-laden gullets on their wide-spread 

 blue wings dark blue against the high shining 

 blue of the sky. All the young birds, stretched up 

 to their full height, would watch its approach, and 

 each and every one of them would regard the 

 returning bird as its own too-long absent parent 

 with food to appease its own furious hunger; and 

 as it came sweeping over the colony there would 

 be a tremendous storm of wild expectant cries 

 strange cat- and dog-like growling, barking, yelping, 

 whining, screaming; and this would last until the 

 newcomer would drop upon its own tree and nest 



