76 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



Then, standing on the nest together, vis-a-vis, and 

 with their necks raised, both the birds intone 

 hoarsely, and seem to glare at one another with 

 their great golden eyes. Then the male bends 

 down his head, raises his crest, snaps his bill several 

 times, and, sinking down, disappears into the nest ; 

 whilst the female, after giving all her feathers and 

 every portion of her person a very violent shake, as 

 though to scatter night and sleep to the four winds, 

 immediately flies off. The whole magnificent scene 

 has lasted but a few seconds. As by magic, then, 

 it is gone, and this quickness in departing has a 

 strange effect upon one. The thing was so real, so 

 painted there, as it were the two great birds, with 

 their orange bills and pale-bright colouring, clear in 

 the morning air. It did not seem as if they could 

 vanish like that. They looked like permanent 

 things, not vanishing dreams. Yet before the eye 

 is satisfied with seeing, or the ear with hearing, the 

 one has flown off silently like a shadow and the 

 other sunk as silently into invisibility. Now there 

 is a great stillness, a great void, and the contrast of 

 it with the flashed vividness of what has just been, 

 impresses itself strangely. It is as though one had 

 walked to some striking canvas of Landseer or Snider, 

 and, as one looked, found it gone. That, however, 

 would be magic. This is not, but it seems so. One 

 feels as though " cheated by dissembling nature." 



I have described the welcoming cry raised by 

 the female heron on the arrival of her mate as 

 " a jubilee of exultant sounds," which indeed it 

 is, or sounds like ; but what these sounds are 

 or were their vocalic value it is difficult to 



