ALONG THE HILLSBOROUGH. 75 
they were so much more conspicuous. Sun- 
light favors the white feather ; no other color 
shows so quickly or so far. If you are on 
the beach and catch sight of a bird far 
out at sea,—a gull or a tern, a gannet or 
a loon, —it is invariably the white parts 
that are seen first. And go the little white 
heron might stand never so closely against 
the grass or the bushes on the further shore 
of the river, and the eye could not miss him. 
If he had been a blue one, at that distance, 
ten to one he would have escaped me. Be- 
sides, | was more on the alert for white ones, 
because I was always hoping to find one of 
them with black legs. In other words, I 
was looking for the little white egret, a bird 
concerning which, thanks to the murderous 
work of plume-hunters, — thanks, also, to 
those good women who pay for having the 
work done,—I must confess that I went 
to Florida and came home again without 
certainly seeing it. 
The heron with which I found myself es- 
pecially taken was the Louisiana; a bird of 
about the same size as the little blue, but 
with an air of daintiness and lightness that 
is quite its own, and quite indescribable. 
