466 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



bream, as large as my hand, were not too much of a meal for him. He 

 would catch them, all alive, out of the tub of water, by the middle of ,the 

 back, toss them up until he got them in the right position, head-first down 

 his throat ; then he would swallow them by dint of great exertion, his neck 

 presenting a curious appearance, as the fish, four inches broad, passed 

 slowly down, making occasional convulsive attempts to struggle ; a pro- 

 ceeding which seemed to enhance the pleasure of the bird." 



We pass our herons and egrets by with mere mention, — the great blue 

 heron widely distributed over the United States, the great and the little 



white egrets, and their 

 closely similar European 

 counterparts, the green 

 heron, and the night-heron 

 already mentioned ; for 

 we wish room to make a 

 quotation from the pages 

 of Mr. W. H. Hudson re- 

 garding one of the smallest 

 of the South American bit- 

 terns. " One day in No- 

 vember, 1870, when out 

 shooting, I noticed a little 

 heron stealing off quickly 

 through a bed of rushes, 

 thirty or forty yards from 

 me ; he was a foot or so 

 above the ground, and 

 went so rapidly that he 

 appeared to glide through 

 the rushes without touch- 

 ing them. I fired, but 

 afterwards ascertained that 

 in my hurry I missed my 

 aim. The bird, however, 

 disappeared at the report; 

 and thinking I had killed 

 him, I went to the spot. It was a small, isolated bed of rushes I had 

 seen him in ; the mud below and for some distance round was quite 

 bare and hard, so that it would have been impossible for the bird to escape 

 without being perceived ; and yet, dead or alive, he was not to be 

 found. After vainly searching and re-searching through the rushes for 



Fig. 394. — Great blue heron (Ardea herodias). 



