THE HERON : 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 useless 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 



