A PLEA FOR THE UNPROTECTED 



with rapid wing-beats over a school of 

 minnows, as steadfast for a minute as a 

 star forever, needing no skill to launch 

 him to his final unrewarded plunge, do 

 not kill him ! In such waters he takes 

 no fish that you would, and he enlivens 

 the scene more than almost any other 

 frequenter of it, never skulking and hid- 

 ing, but with metallic, vociferous clatter 

 heralding his coming. One never tires 

 of watching his still mid-air poise, the 

 same in calm or wind, and his unerring 

 headlong plunge. 



When one wanders along a willowy 

 stream with his gun, cautiously approach- 

 ing every lily -padded pool 'and shadowed 

 bend likely to harbor wood duck or teal, 

 and finds neither, and his ears begin to 

 ache for the sound of his gun if a 

 green heron flaps off a branch before him 

 he is sorely tempted to shoot the un- 

 gainly bird, tyit if the gun must be heard, 

 let it speak to a stump or a tossed chip, 

 either as difficult a target as he, and let 

 the poor harmless little heron live. Un- 

 couth as he is, he comes in well in the 

 picture of such a watercourse, which has 

 done with the worry of turning mills, 

 150 



