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BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


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VOL. II.—NO. 14. DECEMBER, 1895.



THE LESSER EGRET AS A PET.


By the Rev. H. D. AsteEY, M.A.


In a garden, in the midst of which stands a large circular

fountain edged around with a broad border of turf and centred

by three dolphins twisted together by the tail into a conven¬

tional device in stucco, I keep, besides four Spoonbills (about

which more, perhaps, may be told some other day) a Resser

Egret. I wonder whether all these small white birds of the

Heron tribe are equally tameable. To whistle, if he be at all

hungry, means that he will run across the lawn to meet me

and follow at my heels ; sometimes, but not often or always,

uttering a harsh grating cry, which no doubt like all nature’s

sounds would be pleasing at a distance, and which even at close

quarters is not altogether unwelcome to the ear: there is a

quaint wildness about it. He is a bird endued with a certain

amount of common sense ; his yellow eye, set close to the base

of his needle bill, being evidently sharp enough in powers of

sight to dart at the small fish upon which he would feed, were

he able to find them : instead of which he contents himself with

pieces of liver chopped up, and holds his own against the broad

mandibles of the Spoonbills, as they ladle up the bits thrown

down to them.


The Resser Egret is a bird of complete and snowy white¬

ness in plumage, with toes of great length for the size of the

owner, and of a bright yellowish green colour. In the spring

he assumes a slender crest as well as the delicately formed

“ aigrette” feathers on the back.


Every evening my Egret marches solemnly in to his

roosting house (for I fear foxes, etc.) where he will perch himself

upon the summit of a sheaf of clean straw, feeling, without

doubt, superior to the Spoonbills below him.


Anyone having a good supply of fresh water, a picturesque

shallow pond where grow rushes and irises, cannot do better than



