ie ALONG THE HILLSBOROUGH. 
ment — well, there are times when a heron’s 
strength is to stand still. Certainly he 
seemed in no danger of overeating. A 
cracker told me that the major made an 
excellent dish if killed on the full of the 
moon. JI wondered at that qualification, 
but my informant explained himself. The 
bird, he said, feeds mostly at night, and 
fares best with the moon to help him. If 
the reader would dine off roast blue heron, 
therefore, as I hope I never shall, let him 
mind the lunar phases. But think of the 
gastronomic ups and downs of a bird that 1s 
fat and lean by turns twelve times a year! 
Possibly my informant overstated the case ; 
but in any event I would trust the major to 
bear himself like a philosopher. If there is 
any one of God’s creatures that can wait for 
what he wants, it must be the great blue 
heron. 
I have spoken of his caution. If he was 
patrolling a shallow on one side of an 
oyster-bar, — at the rate, let us say, of two 
steps a minute, — and took it into his head 
(an inappropriate phrase, as conveying an 
idea of something like suddenness) to try 
the water on the other side, he did not 
