1 76 OUR RARER BIRDS 



As soon as the young can fly, the old birds appear to 

 desert them, and their half-solitary life is resumed. The 

 young birds are just as retiring in their habits, fishing along 

 the streams and rivers by themselves, but they are not nearly 

 so wary as their more experienced parents. During severe 

 weather the poor Heron is often hard pressed for food, and 

 it soon becomes very emaciated if the waters continue frost- 

 bound long. It then seeks the coast in unusual numbers, 

 making for the mudflats and shallow seas, where food in abund- 

 ance can always be obtained. When so far from home it 

 often passes the night upon the shore, or joins the members of 

 another heronry and shares their roosting-place. It is very 

 rarely that the Heron swims, but it often stands in water up 

 to its thighs, where it has the appearance of floating on the 

 surface. The Heron, like most other birds, soon gets used to 

 the deafening noise of railway trains or the splash of steam- 

 boats, seeming to know that they bode him no danger. As 

 the traveller speeds along the estuary of the Exe, for instance, 

 between Exminster and Dawlish, he may often see the Heron 

 feeding on the wide expanse of mud not a stone's throw from 

 the carriage window ; and as he steams up the beautiful wind- 

 ing Dart between the wooded hills, the big gray Herons show 

 little concern at the boat's intrusion and fly lazily along the 

 shore, their plumage contrasting strongly with the luxuriant 

 verdure on the banks, or start up from the quiet bends of the 

 stream, where they go to fish in the shallows. 



