86 BIRD STUDIES WITH A CAMERA 
of the privilege of observing its singularly stately 
grace of pose and motion he is selfish beyond expres- 
sion, does not even vaguely occur to this so-called 
“ sportsman,’ who belongs in the class to whom a 
majestic cliff is a quarry, a noble tree, lumber. Until 
he has been educated to properly value the beauties 
of Nature, or at least realize the rights of others in 
them, he must be restrained by law, to the force of 
which even he is not blind. 
Only the Great Blue Heron’s extreme wariness 
and habit of frequenting shores and marshes where 
it can command an extended view of its surround- 
ings has preserved it from extinction; but when 
nesting it is compelled to visit woodlands where its 
human enemies have better opportunities to ap- 
proach it, and its only chance for safety during the 
breeding season is to select a retreat remote from 
the home of man. For this reason Great Blue Heron 
rookeries are exceedingly uncommon in more settled 
parts of the bird’s range, and north of Florida I 
have seen their nests in only one locality. 
It was the week after my visit to the Night 
Herons that, in northern Cayuga County, New 
York, I was led by a local ornithologist through one 
of the heaviest pieces of timber I have ever seen 
north of a primeval tropical forest, in search of a 
Great Blue Heron rookery which he knew to exist, 
and only my confidence in his woodsmanship gave 
me courage to follow him over fallen trees and 
through the season’s dense undergrowth, from which 
our passage raised such a host of mosquitoes that 
every step was a battle. If the vicious little insects 
had lived only to protect the Herons, they could not 
