Song Birds and Water Fowl 



ing its habits as minutely as those of other birds. 

 The efifect of such a huge creature (standing 

 about four feet high), when on the wing, is very 

 singular. Without the impressive manner — one 

 might almost say, hauteur — of the eagle, it has 

 a filling presence that is very striking. Flying 

 is the eagle's vocation, but only an avocation of 

 this heron. The lonesome marsh seemed only 

 more silent and lonely after a view of this its 

 presiding genius, hovering about in its wild, 

 mute, and suspicious manner, then floating off 

 half moodily where it could maintain, more un- 

 observed, its noiseless, melancholy reign over its 

 solitary domain. On my way up the creek I 

 asked a man whom I found couching in the 

 grass for ducks, in regard to herons. He re- 

 plied, without the least animation, that he saw 

 three or four of them that morning ; but one 

 meant more to me than three or four to him. 

 It could be seen at a glance that he had no "eyes 

 in his heart ' ' for that stately and picturesque 

 creature ; he had, poor soul, only a capacity for 

 ducks. 



In a close view of the "great blue," when 

 flying, there is something rather comical in its 

 budget of angles — long dangling legs, out- 

 stretched serpentine neck, thin body and broad 

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