362 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
small islands appear, and long narrow sandbanks run 
out fifty or sixty yards with shoals on either side. 
After a very dry season the level of the water is so. 
much reduced that in the broadest (and shallowest) 
part the actual strand where the water begins is a 
hundred yards or more from the nearest hedge. This. 
is just what the heron likes, because no one can 
approach him over that flat expanse of dried mud 
without being immediately detected. I have seen as. 
many as eight herons standing together in a row on 
one such narrow sandbank in the daytime, in regular 
order like soldiers : there were six more on adjacent 
islands. They were not feeding—simply standing 
motionless. As soon as it grew dark they dispersed, 
and ventured then down the lake to those places near 
which footpaths passed. 
But although the night seems the heron’s prin- 
cipal feeding time, he frequently fishes in the day. 
Generally, his long neck enables him to see danger, 
but not always. Several times I have comeright on a 
heron, when the banks of the brook were high and the 
bushes thick, before he has seen me, soas to be for the 
moment within five yards. His clumsy terror is quite 
ludicrous : try how he will he cannot fly fast at start- 
ing ; he requires fifty yards to get properly under way. 
What a contrast with the swift snipe, that darts 
off at thirty miles an hour from under your feet! 
The long hanging legs, the stretched-out neck, the 
wide wings and body, seem to offer a mark which 
