A COLONY OF HERONS 



|ET us now betake ourselves to a 

 scene quite different from anything 

 in the preceding chapters ; where we 

 find no brilliant colors, melodious 

 graces, and fine flowers; but where, in a lonely 

 swamp, black spirits and white, blue spirits 

 and gray, hold high and barbarous carnival, 

 and travel twenty-four miles a day for their 

 meals. Although, in comparison with our 

 most familiar land-birds, the majority of water 

 fowl are very noiseless — whose song is only in 

 the melody of silent, winged motion — the read- 

 er may be assured that the transition from 

 the foregoing list of fluent and accomplished 

 songsters to the night herons will by no means 

 be a passage into " the silent land." 



The heron family, comprising five species 

 known to this region, illustrate a peculiarity 

 often found in human households, wherein one 

 member has a humor for solitude, while another 

 is quite devoted to the world. The night heron 

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