"From Haunts of Coot and Hern" 125 



starting to run. The heron's bundles are its long neck, head 

 and beak, and its two lanky legs. It seems to lose a minute's 

 time trying to dispose of these impedimenta properly before 

 it spreads its wings for the start. 



We left the entrance to the heron's retreat and pulled our 

 way up the river. Going against the current of the Kanka- 

 kee means the mingling of some work with the day's play. 

 The journey of ten minutes going down is a journey of twenty 

 minutes going up. There are, however, plenty of bird excuses 

 for stopping to rest. A small heron pitched on to an island 

 in midstream, fully a hundred yards ahead of our boat. The 

 island was grass-grown, but we succeeded in marking the spot 

 of the bird's disappearance fairly accurately. We made up 

 our minds that we would try to see how close we could 

 approach before this wary bird of the bog should take flight. 

 We kept in the open water until we reached a place abreast 

 of where the heron had disappeared, then turning the prow of 

 our boat toward the island, a few lusty strokes sent us ashore. 

 The bird had gone into the grass not ten yards from the 

 water. We searched the spot thoroughly with our glasses 

 but saw nothing. I was about to jump out of the boat for 

 the purpose of flushing the heron when my wiser friend told 

 me if I jumped off into the mud I could never get out again. 

 I was incredulous, but after I had poked an oar down into 

 the black oozy stuff without meeting with the slightest resist- 

 ance I concluded to stay in the boat. I had hardly pulled 

 the oar out of the mud before the heron rose and made off 

 for a treetop. It was a little green heron, called in many 

 country sections "fly-up-the-creek. " It is probable that had 

 not the protective coloring of the bird been so perfect we 

 could have readily picked it out from its surroundings as 



