Birds. 6931 



the attitude of suspicion, so extremely erect, I think my estimate of 

 height is a few inches too little. It stood perfectly motionless and 

 exactly opposite. This position is doubtless assumed that both eyes 

 may be brought to bear, but it seemed to me singularly to disguise the 

 bird, the loose tuft of feathers on the breast hiding the compressed body 

 from view. The mingled white and reddish brown of the extended 

 neck, the height, the stillness so unlike a bird, conjoined, — it might 

 easily at that distance have been taken for some other object, a 

 dry bamboo, for instance, stuck in the shingle. I allowed my horse 

 to graze, and its suspicions seemed allayed, for it walked deliberately 

 into the water, and then without stopping into the middle of the 

 stream. Tt was now^ only about forty yards off. It took a position a 

 little below a shoal and facing the stream (a constant habit on the 

 two or three occasions I have been able to observe), tucked up 

 its large wings and began to fish. Its body was not so erect as when 

 watching on shore, but the neck was kept upright and stiff, only the 

 lower cervical vertebrae apparently moving on each other, as like a 

 long arm it was slowly moved from one side to the other, as any 

 object in the water attracted the bird's attention. This motion was 

 very singular and uncouth, but perhaps we may trace in it the mode 

 in which every advantage is retained of the commanding height, evi- 

 dently made so important a point in the structure of the bird so as to 

 gain the most extended view possible of the water beneath, whilst 

 the slow movement would prevent alarm in adjacent prey. It was 

 standing in about six inches of water. It suddenly stopped, regarded 

 intently a point two or three feet in front, advanced two or three steps, 

 crouched so that the breast touched the water, the neck forming 

 a sigmoid curve, and then made two or three rapid snaps in the 

 rippling water, and I could see something swallowed — small fishes 

 probably. It then resumed the same manoeuvres, and in a few 

 minutes a much larger object was taken, which I immediately re- 

 cognised to be an eel about eighteen inches long. With this it flew 

 with a stroke or two of the huge wings to the shingle-bank, and there 

 proceeded to despatch its prey, holding the head and jerking it 

 violently with the action common to birds. The body was held 

 low and stooping, the neck bent in graceful curves. The last 

 rays of the sun glowed on its sombre but not inelegant plumage, 

 and glistened on the shining coat of its struggling prey ; the whole, 

 on the patch of bare shingle with its scanty weeds, forming one of 

 those wild scenes of Nature which have a charm about them im- 

 possible to describe. 



