The Home-Life of the American Egret 



61 



progeny form so conspicuous an element of local bird-life that, on the evening 

 of May 7, 1907, as I reached the region in which they lived, I saw them in dozens 

 flying toward the still distant rookery. 



The return at nightfall of birds to their nests, or to a certain roosting-place, 

 is possessed for us of that interest which is attached to all the intelligible actions 

 of animals. The knowledge that the creature has a definite plan or purpose 

 seems to emphasize our kinship with it. So we mark the homeward flight of 

 Heron or of Crow, and, knowing whither they are bound, travel with them in 

 fancy to the journey's end. This has been 

 a fatal habit for the Herons. It mattered 

 little how secluded was the rookery; the 

 hunter found it simply by following 

 their line of flight. 



My way to the home of the white- 

 plumed birds was less direct. For hours 

 a little home-made tug, with a swelling 

 wave at her bow, took me through a 

 succession of bays, canals, cut-offs and 

 serpentine creeks, frightening the Galli- 

 nules and Blackbirds in the reeds, and 

 surprising an occasional alligator on his 

 favorite mud bank. 



A night's rest, and in the morning 

 the journey was resumed through park- 

 like pine forests and under the moss- 

 hung live-oaks, with every tree and 

 plant by leaf and blossom, and every 

 bird by plumage and voice, proclaim- 

 ing the sweetness, beauty and joy of 

 May. Ten miles of spring's pageant 

 brought me to the moat of the Egrets' 

 stronghold. Here I entered a boat, to 

 pass through an apparently endless 

 flooded forest. 



There are delights of the water and 

 delights of the wood, but when both are 

 combined and one's canoe-path leads through a forest, and that of cypress clad 

 in new lace-like foliage and draped with swaying gray moss, one's exultation 

 of spirit passes all measurable bounds. No snapping of twigs or rustling of 

 leaves betrays one. We paddled so easily, so noiselessly, that we seemed as 

 much inhabitants of the place as the great alligators that sank at our approach. 



The Fish Hawks whistled plaintively, but settled on their nests as we passed 

 below them; the Wood Ducks led their broods to the deeper woods; Pileated 



LOUISIANA HERON ON ITS NEST 



