GREAT BLUE HERON 77 



was a blue heron standing in very shallow water amid 

 the weeds of the bar and pluming itself. I had not 

 noticed its legs at all, and its head, neck, and wings, be- 

 ing constantly moving, I had mistaken for arms, elbows, 

 and towel of a bather, and when it stood stiller its 

 shapely body looked like a peculiar bathing-dress. I 

 floated to within twenty-five rods and watched it at my 

 leisure. Standing on the shallowest part of the bar at 

 that end, it was busily dressing its feathers, passing its 

 bill like a comb down its feathers from base to tip. 

 From its form and color, as well as size, it was singu- 

 larly distinct. Its great spear-shaped head and bill was 

 very conspicuous, though least so when turned toward 

 me (whom it was eying from time to time). It coils its 

 neck away upon its back or breast as a sailor might a 

 rope, but occasionally stretches itself to its full height, 

 as tall as a man, and looks around and at me. Growing 

 shy, it begins to wade off, until its body is partly im- 

 mersed amid the weeds, — potamogetons, — and then it 

 looks more like a goose. The neck is continually vary- 

 ing in length, as it is doubled up or stretched out, and 

 the legs also, as it wades in deeper or shallower water. 

 Suddenly comes a second, flying low, and alights on 

 the bar yet nearer to me, almost high and dry. Then 

 I hear a note from them, perhaps of warning, — a 

 short, coarse, frog-like purring or eructating sound. 

 You might easily mistake it for a frog. I heard it half 

 a dozen times. It was not very loud. Anything but 

 musical. The last proceeds to plume himself, looking 

 warily at me from time to time, while the other continues 

 to edge off through the weeds. Now and then the latter 



