SECOND DAY. 15 



in a tree. Bombelles and Homeyer also appeared, butBrehui 

 was missing. He had killed a Grey Heron when we began 

 shooting, and as this species, which he already knew so well, 

 had no longer any special interest for him, he had gone off 

 to observe the " small stuff'" as he always called it, and had 

 taken a line of his own in an opposite direction. We 

 thought it better not to wait for him long, so went off on 

 another ramble through the wood ; and as we were walking 

 under the trees where I had made my first unsuccessful 

 attempts at stalking the Night-Herons, one of these birds 

 flew high over us, and Bombelles knocked it down with a 

 good shot. It was a female, rather small, and not in very 

 fine plumage. I now determined to kill a Night-Heron 

 myself, and therefore looked out for the second pair, which I 

 soon found, near the half-dried arm of the river already 

 alluded to. 



They were circling round some trees, on whose tops they 

 now and then settled, and as they seemed much warier than 

 the Grey Herons it was no use attempting to get near them 

 in the ordinary way, so, on reaching the trees which we 

 thought they frequented, I sent Hodek and my jiiger a 

 certain distance back, and not until I had done this did one 

 of the birds descend, and, slowly folding its wings, try to alight 

 on a tree near me. My first shot merely wounded it, and it 

 was only on receiving the second that it dropped into a thick 

 silver poplar, and slowly fluttered down the trunk of the 

 tree. 



Luckily it was a very fine specimen an old male with its 

 throat, breast, and underparts pure white, its back a beautiful 

 silver-grey, its head black, ornamented with splendid long 

 crest-feathers, and its beak and legs, when it was freshly 

 killed, had a peculiar reddish tint which, according to Hodek, 

 is a sign of great age. Some hours later they had become 

 perceptibly paler, and now, alas ! there is no longer the slightest 



