104 VIGNETTES FROM NA TURE, • 



« 



plumage ; and still I will try. I push very 

 quietly through the gate, but not quite quietly 

 enough for the heron. One moment he raises 

 his curved neck and poises his head a little on 

 one side to listen for the direction of the 

 rustling ; then he catches a glimpse of me as 

 I try to draw back silently behind a clump of 

 flags and nettles ; and in a moment his long 

 legs give him a good spring from the bottom, 

 his big wings spread with a sudden flap sky- 

 wards, and almost before I can note what is 

 happening he is off and away to leeward, 

 making in a bee-line for the high trees that 

 fringe the artificial water in Chilcombe 

 Hollow. 



; . All these wading birds — the herons, the 

 cranes, the bitterns, the snipes, and the 

 plovers — are almost necessarily, by the very 

 nature of their typical conformation, beautiful 

 and graceful in form. Their tall, slender legs, 

 which they require for wading, their compara- 

 tively light and well-poised bodies, their long, 

 curved, quickly-darting necks and sharp beaks, 



