THE GREAT BLUE HERON 151 



to have made a special effort to harmonise the form, 

 colour, and movements of the bird with the tall, rich 

 vegetation of the marshes. 



With the awakening of the far and hushed north 

 the Heron moves to his summer home, but does not 

 feel impelled to seek the distant regions beyond the 

 invasion of man. Wherever tall trees reasonably 

 remote from inquisitive human meddling afford a 

 nesting-place he may decide to locate. If left un- 

 molested he will come season after season to the same 

 locality, repairing such damage as the passing storms 

 may have done to the lofty platform of lodged sticks 

 that serves him as a nest. A heron family grows in 

 noisy importunity as the time for leaving the nest 

 approaches. Though the brood may remain silent 

 while the mother is abroad gathering a supply of Fish 

 or Frogs, perhaps occasionally putting forth a long 

 neck to look around over the treetops, every return 

 is greeted with a harsh and rasping uproar that seems 

 almost to profane the stillness of the forest. The 

 parents make long excursions to distant marshes, and 

 when the young, fully grown, but immature in 

 plumage and colour, pass from parental care they 

 make their way leisurely southward from marsh to 

 marsh and from swamp to swamp. They seem 

 reluctant to leave, but take alarm when the noisy 

 slaughter of the game birds disturbs the quiet of their 

 favourite haunts. 



