230 BIRDS 



Disturb him, and with a harsh rasping squawk he spreads 

 his long wings, flaps them softly and solemnly, and slowly 

 flies deeper into the marsh. At close range he looks a 

 comical mass of angles; but as he soars away and circles 

 majestically above, his great shadow moving over the 

 marsh like a cloud, no bird but the eagle is so impressive 

 and even it is not so picturesque. 



Herons are by no means hermits always. Colonies of 

 ten or fifteen pairs return year after year at the nesting 

 season to ancestral rookeries, each couple simply relining 

 with fresh twigs the platform of sticks in a tree-top that has 

 served a previous brood or generation as a nest. The 

 three or four dull bluish green eggs that are a Uttle larger 

 than a hen's very rarely tumble out of the rickety lattice, 

 however. Both the crudeness of the nest and the eUiptical 

 form of the egg indicate, among other signs, that the heron 

 is one of the low forms of bird life, not far removed 

 from the reptiles, as scientists reckon eons of time. Some- 

 times nests are found directly on the ground or on the tops 

 of rocks; but even then the fledglings, that sit on their 

 haunches in a state of helplessness, make no attempt to run 

 about for two or three weeks. 



Only a generation ago the snowy heron or egret was so 

 abundant the southern marshes fairly glistened with 

 flocks, as if piled with snow; but all the trace of this ex- 

 quisite bird now left is in the aigrettes that, once worn as 

 its wedding dress, to-day wave above the unthinking brows 

 of foolish women. In some states there is a penalty at- 

 tached to the shooting of this heron; but the plume hunters 

 evade the law by cutting the flesh containing the aigrettes 

 from the back of the living bird, that is left to die in agony. 

 Countless thousands of the particularly helpless fledglings. 



