250 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
who had crept deep among the branches, again 
emerging in house coat of drab! These were not 
the same, however, and the first glance through 
binoculars showed the thick-set, humped figures 
and huge, staring eyes of night herons. 
As the last rays of the sun left the summit of 
the royal palms, something like the shadow of a 
heron flashed out and away, and then the import 
of these facts was impressed upon me. The 
egret, the night heron, the vampire—here were 
three types of organisms, characterizing the ac- 
tions and reactions in nature. The islands were 
receiving and giving up. Their heart was be- 
coming filled with the many day-feeding birds, 
and now the night-shift was leaving, and the 
very branch on which a night heron might have 
been dozing all day was now occupied, perhaps, 
by a sleeping egret. With eyes enlarged to 
gather together the scanty rays of light, the night 
herons were slipping away in the path of the 
vampires—both nocturnal, but unlike in all other 
ways. And I wondered if, in the very early 
morning, infant night herons would greet their 
returning parents; and if their callow young ever 
_fell into the dark waters, what awful deathly al- 
