250 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



who had crept deep among the branches, again 

 emerging in house coat of drab I These were not 

 the same, however, and the first glance through 

 binoculars showed the thick-set, humped figures 

 and huge, staring eyes of night herons. 



As the last rays of the sun left the summit of 

 the royal palms, something like the shadow of a 

 heron flashed out and away, and then the import 

 of these facts was impressed upon me. The 

 egret, the night heron, the vampire — here were 

 three types of organisms, characterizing the ac- 

 tions and reactions in nature. The islands were 

 receiving and giving up. Their heart was be- 

 coming filled with the many day-feeding birds, 

 and now the night-shift was leaving, and the 

 very branch on which a night heron might have 

 been dozing all day was now occupied, perhaps, 

 by a sleeping egret. With eyes enlarged to 

 gather together the scanty rays of light, the night 

 herons were slipping away in the path of the 

 vampires — both nocturnal, but unlike in all other 

 ways. And I wondered if, in the very early 

 morning, infant night herons would greet their 

 returning parents; and if their callow young ever 

 fell into the dark waters, what awful deathly al* 



