BREAKS OF THE CREEK. 157 



which furnish a pleasing shade. Here for a 

 time I rest and gaze out over the valley and the 

 hills beyond. A great blue heron, 06 on slowly 

 flapping wing, comes moving over. M. has told 

 me that it often rests in the top of a tall dead 

 tree which rises between my tent and the creek. 

 It does not stop there to-day but, casting a leery 

 eye in that direction, flaps on and on. A pru- 

 dent bird is this long-legged, awkward, spin- 

 dling wader; not taking freely to innovations 

 like that of a tent which has sprung into exist- 

 ence since last it passed this way. 



"Breaks of the creek" is a term much used 

 by the country people of this region. It is ex- 

 pressive and applies to the hills and great ra- 

 vines in the immediate vicinity of our larger 

 streams. Many of these ravines along Raccoon 

 are so deep and overhung with low trees and 

 underbrush that the midday sun can scarce 

 force through a beam to kiss their bottom levels. 

 Breaks in the crust of the earth are they, not 

 in the creek ; scars and sloughs of nature formed 

 by water, wind and frost and worn deep by 

 time's unceasing tooth; their once bare sides 

 reclothed with green of shrub and herb, with 

 here and there a distorted tree to rise above the 

 more lowly vestiture. All the more noble oaks 

 and maples, hickories and linwoods, poplars and 



86 Ardes herodias L. 



