"A SIGHT FOR SAIR EEN " 81 



lonely, sombre spot that they had chosen for their 

 home. This, too, is " a sight for sair een." How 

 grandly the birds move " aloft, incumbent on the 

 dusky air," beating it with slow measured strokes of 

 those " sail-broad vans " of theirs. They approach, 

 then glide apart, and, as they sweep in circles, tilt 

 themselves oddly from one side to another, so that 

 now their upper, and now their under surface catches 

 the cold gloomy light a fine sight beneath the 

 snow-clouds. With a shriek one comes swooping 

 round upon the other, who, almost in the moment 

 of contact, glides smoothly away from him. The 

 pursuer plies his wings : slow-beating, swift-moving, 

 they pass over the desolate waste, one but just 

 behind the other. Again a " wild, wild " cry from 

 the pursuing bird is answered by another from the 

 one pursued, and then, on set sails, they sink to earth, 

 in a long, smooth, gently descending line, reaching 

 it without another wing-beat. Queer figures they 

 make when they get there. One sits as though on 

 the nest, his long legs being quite invisible beneath 

 him. The other stands in varying attitudes, but all 

 very different from anything one ever sees repre- 

 sented, either in a picture or a glass case. That 

 elegant letter S, which especially under the latter 

 hateful condition the neck is, of custom, put into, 

 occurs in the living bird less frequently than one 

 might suppose it would. When resting or doing 

 nothing in particular, herons draw the head right 

 in between the shoulders or rather wings which 

 latter droop idly down, and being, thus, partially 

 expanded, like a fan fallen open, cover, with their 

 broad surface, the whole body and most of the legs. 



