240 ASSISTED VISION 



sets to work ; the bird seems to be simply delighting 

 in the sparkling water and bright sunshine, and she 

 continues the motion as long as we continue to 

 watch her. 



There is a pale lean form visible at the edge of 

 yonder floating tangle, so still and grey that it might 

 easily escape observation, but that a brace of mis- 

 chievous rooks, winging along the shore, turn aside 

 to make an unfriendly demonstration towards it. This 

 is a heron, lone and melancholy as the shade of 

 departed chivalry ; see how angrily he turns his sharp 

 lance towards the intruders, who, after wheeling two 

 or three times round him, wisely pursue their way, and 

 the other resumes his fishing. He stands mid-thigh in 

 the tide, his neck stiff and slightly projected, intently 

 watching the fringe of seaweed. He has seen some- 

 thing ; slowly, almost imperceptibly, he pushes himself 

 a few inches forward, till within striking distance ; like 

 a flash he darts his head javelin-fashion under water, 

 and when he raises it there is a fish of six inches 

 between his serrated mandibles. Three times within 

 ten minutes the same operation is successfully re- 

 peated; once he is balked at the critical moment by 

 the return of those tiresome rooks; each time he 

 secures a fish he turns towards the shore before 

 swallowing it, just as a cautious human angler would 

 do instinctively before unhooking a trout, so that if it 

 fell it should be in shallow water. 



