94 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



above the surface, a third had only head and neck 

 out, the whole body being submerged ; and it 

 puzzled me to think how he could keep himself 

 down unless it was by grasping the roots of the 

 grass with his claws. Occasionally one of the 

 bathers would shift his position, coming partly 

 up or going lower down, or turning over on the 

 other side ; but there was no flutter or bird - like 

 excitement. They rested long in one position, 

 and moved in a leisurely, deliberate manner, 

 lying and luxuriating in the tepid water like pigs, 

 buffaloes, hippopotamuses, and other water-loving 

 mammalians. I watched them for an hour or so, 

 and when I left, two were still lying down in the 

 water. The other three had finished their bath, 

 and were standing drying their plumage in the 

 hot sun. 



This was not the first surprise the heron had 

 given me, but the first was received far from this 

 land in my early shooting and collecting days, and 

 the species was not our well-known historical bird, 

 the Ardea cinerea of Britain and Europe generally, 

 and Asia and Africa, but the larger Ardea cocoi of 

 South America, a bird with a bigger wing-spread, 

 but so like it in colour and action that any person 

 from England on first seeing it would take it for 

 a very large specimen of his familiar home bird. 



It happened that I was making a collection of 

 the birds of my part of the country and was in 

 want of a specimen of our common heron. A few 

 of these birds haunted the river near my home, and 



