A FEATHERED NOTABLE 95 
one day when out with the gun. I caught sight of 
one fishing in the river. It was deep there, and the 
bird was standing under and close to the bank, 
where the water came up to his feathered thighs. 
Moving back from the bank I got within shooting 
distance and then had a look at him and saw that 
he was very intently watching the water, with 
head drawn back and apparently about to strike. 
And just as I pulled the trigger he struck, and 
stricken himself at the same moment he threw him- 
self up into the air and rose to a height of about 
thirty feet, then fell back to earth close to the 
margin and began beating with his wings. When I 
came up he was at his last gasp, and what was my 
astonishment to find a big fish impaled by his 
beak. It was an uneatable fish, of a peculiar South 
American family, its upper part cased in bony 
plates; an ugly and curious-looking creature called 
Vieja (“old woman”) by the natives. It was a 
common fish in our stream and a nuisance when 
caught, as it invariably sucked the hook into its 
belly. Now I had often found dead “ old women” 
lying on or near the bank with a hole in their bony 
back and wondered at it. I had concluded that 
some of the native boys in our neighbourhood had 
taken to spearing the fish, and naturally these use- 
less ones they killed were thrown away. Now I 
knew that they were killed by the heron with a blow 
of his powerful beak; a serious mistake on the bird’s 
part, but an inevitable one in the circumstances, 
since even the shining, piercing eyes of a heron 
