76 BEACH GRASS 



glide when a bird hops must have been the prim- 

 itive form of aviation in birds, just as it was the 

 primitive form in man. The early gliding ex- 

 periments of Lillienthal are historical. 



Near the heronry, the footprints of multitudes 

 of night herons are in evidence, and rarely one 

 comes across the much larger prints of the great 

 blue heron. One of these birds, a sportive indi- 

 vidual, took three broad jumps with feet together 

 before taking flight. The tracks of this heron 

 are more commonly seen on the beach or in the 

 wet places in the dunes, but I retain the picture 

 in my mind of one of these great birds standing 

 like a Japanese bronze on a dune-top silhouetted 

 against the sunset. 



Toad tracks are sometimes abundant in the 

 dunes, but their numbers are dependent on the 

 amount of water in the bogs in the tadpole sea- 

 son. In August and September one may find 

 multitudes of their curious tracks, most of them 

 of small individuals. Their usual gait is by 

 short jumps only two or three inches long or less, 

 but I have measured the jumps of larger toads 

 that were evidently in a hurry, and had cleared 



