FEBRUARY. 43 



picture of despair. Would it not have been less mopish 

 and disconsolate had the day been brighter ? I think so. 



It is strange that when birds are seemingly out of place 

 and apparently laboring under every disadvantage, as in 

 the case of herons in winter, they are invested with greater 

 interest than in those ordinary conditions when they are 

 familiar objects of daily observation. The great blue 

 heron and the " quok," that are occasionally seen on the 

 meadows and along the river during the winter, are sure 

 to command a greater degree of attention than during 

 summer, and add unusual interest to the day's outing. 

 They are so associated with warm weather, with minnows 

 in the shallow brooks and frogs in the spring-holes, that 

 we wonder why they are here now, pity them if necessity 

 required their remaining, and are puzzled to conjecture 

 where they find sufficient food. Such was, at least, the 

 current of my thoughts until I found that there never was 

 so cold a day that some open water could not be found, or 

 water so cold that both frogs and fish did not venture to 

 be abroad. But the supply of food from such sources is an 

 uncertain one at best, and probably the land rather than 

 the water is their principal hunting-ground. In other 

 words, they are hunters rather than fishermen. My atten- 

 tion was recently called to this matter by a taxidermist 

 who found three partly digested meadow-mice in the stom- 

 ach of a winter-killed great blue heron. Following this 

 clew, my own observations convinced me that the meadows 

 were systematically hunted for the innumerable mice that 

 tunnel the matted dead grass in every direction. What of 

 deep snows? it may be asked; but, fortunately for the 

 herons, lasting snows are unknown to the low-lying tracts 

 I treat of, and so do not enter into the matter at all. I 

 would not be understood to say that mice are their sole 

 dependence in winter, but that a sufficient number are 

 caught to make up the deficiency of frogs and fish. 



