THE HERON : A FEATHERED NOTABLE 105 



past, when it was more to the country gentleman 

 than the semi-domestic pheasant and the par- 

 tridge on the arable land and the blackcock and 

 red -grouse on the moors all together to the man of 

 to-day. The memory of that vanished time, the 

 thought that the ruder life of the past, when men 

 lived nearer to Nature, had a keener flavour, is 

 accompanied with a haunting regret. It is true 

 that the regret is for something we have not known, 

 that we have only heard or read of it, but it has 

 become mixed in our mind with our very own 

 experienced past — our glad beautiful " days that 

 are no more." And when we remember that in 

 those distant days the heron was a table -bird, we 

 may well believe that men were healthier and had 

 better appetites than now — that they were all and 

 always young. 



