A Bird's- Eye View 



in large colonies or in pairs, and rails, found in 

 open, reedy swamps. Herons as a class are large 

 and aerial, while rails are much smaller and es- 

 sentially ground birds, rarely on the wing, and, 

 with their strangely attenuated bodies (which 

 have made them the proverbial type of thinness) 

 easily gliding among the closely growing reeds 

 and rushes of the marsh. This class furnishes 

 one of the best game birds in the country — the 

 Carolina rail — extremely abundant in their fa- 

 vorite resorts during migration. From their 

 peculiar figure and character of habitat, rails 

 are often called mud-hens. 



Of the herons, which serve only for beauty 

 and not for use, the most abundant in the East- 

 ern States are the night heron, the great blue, 

 and the green herons. The handsomest of the 

 class, the great white heron, is, unfortunately, 

 only a rare straggler from the South, and its min- 

 iature fac -simile, the little white heron, is almost 

 as rare. 



Along almost every stream can be seen the 

 curiously teetering, spotted sandpiper, whose 

 grotesque mannerisms make one wonder whether 

 he is suffering from hereditary uncouthness, or 

 expressing something inexplicable. 



Here and there at a pond may be found the 



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