120 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



wings extended, dived as a rook will downwards 

 through the air. He twisted from side to side like a 

 coin partly spun round by the finger and thumb, as he 

 came down, rushing through the air head first The 

 sound of his great vanes pressing and dividing the air 

 was plainly audible. He looked unable to manage his 

 descent; but at the right moment he recovered his 

 balance, and rose a little up into a tree on the summit, 

 drawing his long legs into the branches behind him. 

 The fourth heron fetched a wide circle, and so descended 

 into the wood ; two more passed on over the valley 

 altogether six herons in about a quarter of an hour. 

 They intended, no doubt, to wait in the trees till it 

 was dusky, and then to go down and fish in the river. 

 Herons are called cranes, and heronies are craneries. 

 A determined sportsman, who used to eat every heron 

 he could shoot in revenge for their ravages among the 

 trout, at last became suspicious, and, examining one, 

 found in it the remains of a rat and of a toad, after 

 which he did not eat anymore. Another sportsman 

 found a heron in the very act of gulping down a good- 

 sized trout, which stuck in the gullet. He shot the 

 heron and got the trout, which was not at all injured, 

 only marked on each side where the beak had cut it. 

 The fish was cooked and eaten. 



This summer evening the bars of golden and rosy 

 cl oud gradually lost their bright colour, but retained 

 some purple in the vapour for a long time. If the red 

 sunset clouds turn black, the country people say it will 

 rain; if any other colour, it will be fine. The path 

 from the river led beside the now dusky moor, and 

 the curlew's weird whistle came out of the increasing 



