124 BIRD LIFE IN THE STEPPES. 



in trees and vegetation generally. The shores of the three 

 seas, the Euxine, the Caspian, and the Sea of Azov, as well 

 as the banks of the rivers that flow into them, and the 

 neighbouring pools and marshes, are peopled by countless 

 gulls, wild ducks, herons, curlews, and pelicans. The 

 Cossack and Kalmuck chiefs, who retain the love of 

 falconry that animated their fierce ancestors, hunt these 

 birds with considerable eagerness ; and a time may come 

 when in Eastern Asia the heron will be as rare as it is in 

 England. 



The Herons belong, zoologically speaking, to the order 

 Grallatores, or Wading-birds. Their numerous species 

 frequent the marshy portions of the steppes in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the seas already mentioned. There the picture 

 presented to the traveller's eye frequently recalls the poet's 

 graphic lines : — 



" O'er yonder ample lake the while, 

 What bird about that wooded isle, 

 With pendent feet and pinions slow, 

 Is seen his ponderous length to row? 

 'Tis the tall heron's awkward flight, 

 His crest of black, and neck of white, 

 Ear sunk his gray-blue wings between, 

 And giant legs of murky green." 



The most notable species is, we think, the Great White 

 Heron, which, with his long bill, long and slender limbs, 

 and black feet, stalks about arrayed in plumage of snowy 

 white. He measures about forty inches in length. On the 

 nape and croup are long flexible feathers, wavy, and with 

 tapering ends, which are much valued for the purpose of 

 personal decoration. 



