TWO HERONS ny 
The Night Heron or Quawk belongs among the 
birds for whom the setting sun marks the beginning 
of a new day—a fact which protects him from man 
and permits his existence in numbers where others 
of his family are rarely seen. Doubtless many of 
the residents of Heronville know their feathered 
neighbors only as a voice from the night, which 
comes to them when the birds, in passing over, utter 
their loud and startling call. 
Finally, to the protecting influences of a love for 
seclusion and darkness must be added the unusual 
position assumed by the proprietor of the land, who 
will not permit any one to kill the birds, and, 
stranger still, does not kill them himself! 
Thus it happens that any day in May or June, 
the months during which the Herons are at home, 
one may leave the crowded streets of New York and 
within an hour or so enter an equally crowded but 
quite different kind of town. 
If after leaving the train you secure the same 
guide it was my good fortune to have, your way will 
lead over shaded roads, pleasant fields, and quiet 
woodland paths, and, if the sun is well up in the 
trees, you may enter the outskirts of the rookery 
and be wholly unaware, unless you approach from 
the leeward, that between two and three thousand 
Herons are within a few hundred yards of you. 
One may gain a far better idea of Heron life, 
however, by visiting the rookery while the foliage 
is still glistening with dew. Then, from a distance, 
a chorus of croaks may be heard from the young 
birds as they receive what, in effect, is their supper. 
Old birds are still returning from fishing trips, and 
