104 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



plumage ; and still I will try. I push very 

 quietly through the gate, but not quite quietly 

 enough for the heron. One moment he raises 

 his curved neck and poises his head a little on 

 one side to listen for the direction of the 

 rustling ; then he catches a glimpse of me as 

 I try to draw back silently behind a clump of 

 flags and nettles ; and in a moment his long 

 legs give him a good spring from the bottom, 

 his big wings spread with a sudden flap sky- 

 wards, and almost before I can note what is 

 happening he is off and away to leeward, 

 making in a bee-line for the high trees that 

 fringe the artificial water in Chilcombe 

 Hollow. 



All these wading birds the herons, the 

 cranes, the bitterns, the snipes, and the 

 plovers are almost necessarily, by the very 

 nature of their typical conformation, beautiful 

 and graceful in form. Their tall, slender legs, 

 which they require for wading, their compara- 

 tively light and well-poised bodies, their long, 

 curved, quickly-darting necks and sharp beaks, 



