246 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



both the baby herons and I were looking, and for 

 them reah'zation came quickly. The sun had 

 sunk still lower, and great clouds had begun to 

 spread their robes and choose their tints for the 

 coming pageant. 



And now the vanguard of the homing host ap- 

 peared, — black dots against blue and white and 

 salmon, — thin, gaunt forms with slow-moving 

 wings which cut the air through half the sky. 

 The little herons and I watched them come — first 

 a single white egret, which spiralled down, just 

 as I had many times seen the first returning Spad 

 eddy downward to a cluster of great hump- 

 backed hangars ; then a trio of tricolored herons, 

 and six little blues, and after that I lost count. 

 It seemed as if these tiny islands were magnets 

 drawing all the herons in the world. 



Parrakeets whirl roostwards with machine-like 

 synchronism of flight ; geese wheel dovv^n in more 

 or less regular formation; but these herons con- 

 centrated along straight lines, each describing 

 its individual radius from the spot where it 

 caught its last fish or shrimp to its nest or the 

 particular branch on which it w^ill spend the 

 night. With a hemicircle of sufficient size, one 

 might plot all of the hundreds upon hundreds of 



