630 MR. W. H. HUDSON ON THE HABITS OF HERONS. [Nov. 16, 
instinct that made its peculiar conformation and imitative colour far 
more advantageous than they could be of themselves. 
One day in November 1870, when out shooting, I noticed a little 
Heron stealing off quickly through a bed of rushes, thirty or forty 
yards from me ; he was a foot or so above the ground, and went so 
rapidly that he appeared to glide through the rushes without touch- 
ing them. I fired, but afterwards ascertained that in my hurry I 
missed my aim. The bird, however, disappeared at the report; and 
thinking I had killed him, I went to the spot. 
It was a small isolated bed of rushes I had seen him in; the mud 
below and for some distance round was quite bare and hard, so that 
it would have been impossible for the bird to escape without being 
perceived ; and yet, dead or alive, he was not.to be found. After 
vainly searching and researching through the rushes for a quarter of 
an hour, I gave over the quest in great disgust and bewilderment, 
and, after reloading, was just turning to go, when, behold! there 
stood my Heron on a reed, no more than eight inches from, and on 
a level with, my knees. He was perched, the body erect and the point 
of the tail touching the reed grasped by its feet; the long slender, 
tapering neck was held stiff, straight and vertically ; and the head and 
beak, instead of being carried obliquely, were also pointing up. There 
was not, from his feet to the tip of the beak, a perceptible curve or 
inequality, but the whole was the figure (the exact counterpart) of a 
straight tapering rush: the loose plumage arranged to fill inequali- 
ties, the wings pressed into the hollow sides, made it impossible to 
see where the body ended and the neck began, or to distinguish head 
from neck or beak from head. This was, of course, a front view; and 
the entire under surface of the bird was thus displayed, all of a uni- 
form dull yellow like that of a faded rush. I regarded the bird 
wonderingly for some time ; but not the least motion did it make. I 
thought it was wounded or paralyzed with fear, and, placing my hand 
on the point of its beak, forced the head down till it touched the 
back; when I withdrew my hand, up flew the head, like a steel 
spring, to its first position, I repeated the experiment many times 
with the same result, the very eyes of the bird appearing all the 
time rigid and unwinking like those of a creature in a fit. What 
wonder that it is so difficult, almost impossible, to discover the bird in 
such an attitude! But how happened it that while repeatedly walking 
round the bird through the rushes I had not caught sight of the 
striped back and the broad dark-coloured sides? I asked myself this 
question, and stepped round to get a side view, when, mirabile dictu, 
I could still see nothing but the rush-like front of the bird! His 
motions on the perch as he turned slowly or quickly round, still 
keeping the edge of the blade-like body before me, corresponded so 
exactly with my own that I almost doubted that I had moved at all. 
No sooner had I seen the finishing part of this marvellous instinct of 
self-preservation (this last act making the whole entire), than such a 
degree of delight and admiration possessed me as I have never before 
experienced during my researches, much as I have conversed with 
wild animals in the wilderness, and many and perfect as are the in- | 
