THE LOOK 75 



Written for the Loon. 

 Among' the Herons, 



By F. H. Andrews, Carlinville, 111, 



An article in the September number of The Loon, entitled 

 " Some Heron Notes," recalls to my mind my first experience 

 with this bird in its haunts. I had chosen, on account of prox- 

 imity, a swamp of a circular shape and almost inaccessible to 

 the hunter, for our introduction. This swamp is one of a chain 

 of lakes which at some time has been the end of a creek which 

 at that time flowed for some distance almost parallel with the 

 larger stream of which it is a tributary but has since cut thro' 

 the harder formation that first turned it aside into the larger 

 stream some miles above, thus leaving a series of swamps, one 

 of which a company, by building a dam, has transformed into 

 a beautiful lake for pleasure purposes. A few miles below 

 this lake, and the last of the series, lies the swamp out of the 

 reach of molesting pleasure-seekers. Along the south side of 

 the swamp is a narrow lagoon where the timid collector might 

 content himself with the rails and shore birds that seek their 

 food in its miry depths ; but far beyond this, through the 

 dense growth of beer-seeds which stand six feet out of the 

 water and mud, and into which one sinks to his hips at every 

 step; beyond this and through the maze of water-lilies and 

 reddish-colored aquatic plants which grow in bunches scat 

 tered over an expanse of open shallow water ; here is where 

 numerous Egrets and Great Blue Herons make their summer 

 sojourn. 



I have described this swamp at length, not that it differs ma- 

 terially from most others — indeed it is many times smaller 



