122 WILD LIFE IN THE TREE TOPS 



has yet put in an appearance. She is as motionless as ever — her cold yellow 

 eye still' — apparently. — ^fixed on the peephole. 



Well, it is an opportunity for another change of position, so the body is 

 raised as on the previous occasion. 



In an instant the sitting Heron's head has shot up to the full length of 

 her neck — for a fraction of a second it is held so ; clean cut in form, and with 

 eye rounded in terror — then a ' whoof-whoof ' of her great wings and. — she is 

 gone ! Almost immediately the ' flop ' of something hitting the ground below 

 reminds us that we had omitted to fasten the cushion-sack on to our seat ! 

 Hence the Heron's consternation. 



So once more the hard branch — minus the cushion — is utilized as a seat ; 

 and it would seem lucky that the sack dropped when it did, for a few minutes 

 later the half-grown young ones^ — their quarrel forgotten — suddenly develop 

 a state of the most feverish excitement. With crests and ' hackles ' raised, 

 they stamp about the nest, uttering the while a queer ' chun-chun-chun ' — ^not 

 unlike the noise that a steam-roller makes — and trying, it almost seems, to 

 brush each other aside with their ' quilly ' half-spread wings. In a few seconds 

 the cause of their excitement appears, for with his great wings beating the air 

 as he steadies his flight, the most glorious male Heron lands upon the edge of 

 the nest. 



The young ones, now quite overcome by their excitement and unable to 

 contain themselves any longer, begin to bob up and down before him, curtsying 

 as it were, in their anxiety for the food whi6h they cannot see, but which they 

 conclude will be produced. 



' Food which they cannot see,' and food moreover which the observer 

 would not even suspect — for the Heron does not, as is sometimes erroneously 

 believed — carry its food in a pouch at the base of the bill as a Rook does — nor 

 in fact anywhere else where its presence might be detected. The food is swal- 

 lowed, and then disgorged for the young, and is usuaUy more or less digested. 



The actual process of regurgitation covers a period of several nainutes. 

 In the first place the parent Heron raises his head to the fuU extent of his 

 slender neck, and with convulsive workings of his cheeks and throat prepares 

 to eject the meal. 



This seems to tantalize the young ones to such an extent that their steam- 

 roller cry gives place to a noisy pig-like squealing, while, reaching up unsteadily 

 on their immature legs, they make wild jabs with their beaks in the direction 

 of their parent's face. 



Then, quite deliberately, the provident head is lowered, so that the young 

 herons may, commencing at the extreme base of the bill — and sometimes about 

 the region of the eyes — draw their beaks along his to the tip — in much the same 

 way as one milks a cow — and by so doing, scrape off some semi-fluid substance 

 which seems to give them great satisfaction. 



