BIRD FISHERMEN 191 



have been long and cruelly persecuted. Their 

 habits of meeting and breeding in colonies also tend 

 to their destruction, as a heronry is usually a place 

 of wholesale slaughter when found by plume-hunt- 

 ers. Not only do the herons congregate as a dis- 

 tinct family, but they also welcome many other 

 varieties of birds to their colonies. In the Trinity 

 River bottoms of Texas there were, a few years ago, 

 heronries where thousands of marsh and water birds 

 had formed a little city for the purpose of rearing 

 their young. 



Baldamus gives a remarkable description of such 

 a scene. He says : "A sight more varied, charming, 

 or beautiful, would be hard to find than these . . . 

 marshes with their feathered inhabitants, which are 

 as remarkable for the different individual habits 

 of each species as for the diversity of their form 

 and plumage. Observe the most striking members 

 of this community of marsh and water birds, and 

 conceive for a moment these snow-white, straw-col- 

 oured, grey, black, primatic, gold and purple, the^ 

 green and red-headed, crested, eared, long and 

 short-legged creatures, standing, stalking, running, 

 climbing, swimming, diving, flying; in short, living 

 masses, striking in shape and colour, standing out 

 in bold relief against the bright blue heavens and 

 brilliant green of the meadows, and one must allow 



