156 The Bird 
Herons are the ‘still-fishers’ of the bird world, and stand 
in the shallows, silent and motionless as the reeds around 
them, with their lance-like beaks in rest and their necks 
Frc. 120.—Great Blue Heron, a still hunter. (Sanborn, photographer. Courtesy 
N. Y. Zoological Society.) 
at a hair-trigger poise. So we see that few kinds of fish, 
from the lowly lamprey to the jewelled brook trout, 
escape the sharp eyes of birds, and even when decayed 
