THE PADDY-BIRD. 133 



contrasts strikingly with their flesh-coloured beaks. They 

 always have green legs, but the beak, as they grow up> 

 changes to blue and yellow with a black tip. Their eyes 

 too are always yellow like those of most herons, this 

 giving the family a vicious appearance, which their dispo- 

 sition does not belie ; for, though sociable at breeding 

 and roosting-time, they are decidedly quarrelsome, ill- 

 conditioned birds in their general character. What every 

 heron wants is to be let alone , and if he feels his liberties 

 and rights are being encroached upon, he does his best to 

 give the intruder " one in the eye " with a despatch and 

 accuracy which are the natural outcome of much fishing 

 experience. The heron tribe are, indeed, specialists in the 

 art of taking aim and biding their time ; they do not 

 generally walk about after their prey but wait for it to 

 come to them, and reach for it when it is obliging enough 

 to do so. Their general habits and attitudes are very 

 stereotyped, and any one who has watched the little 

 Paddy-bird will have a very good idea of most of his rela- 

 tives. They all keep their necks curved back on their 

 shoulders when they are flying, unlike most other long- 

 necked birds ; and they mostly fly with the same easy 

 regular stroke of the wings, which, in the case of the bigger 

 species is much quicker than it looks. Twice I have timed 

 the wing-strokes of the big grey heron (Ardea cinerea) at 

 home, and both times found them to be two to every 

 second. 



They build, too, the same style of nest, a miserable 

 platform of sticks or other convenient material, generally 

 in a tree, like the Paddy-bird, and the eggs are usually 



