The Great Blue Herons 



exaggeration, the most soul-emptying succession of expletives in the 

 North American bird language. 



But all this insight into the domestic economy of the Heron must 

 be obtained incog. Once you are recognized in the undergrowth below 

 as a dreaded human, a great hush falls upon the colony. The anxious 

 parents shrink until every feather seems glued to their persons, full length, 

 and if possible they slink away. The clamoring youngsters, standing full 

 height in their nests, at a signal from an adult turn to stone. After this 

 they sink down into the nest, and so out of sight, by a movement as 

 insensible as that of the hands of a clock. 



Bethinking myself of this ruse, I was once able to save a situation 

 and turn the tables neatly upon a heron, — the subject of the portrait on 

 page 1890. I had suddenly thrust my head up over a sand-dune ridge 

 to reconnoiter, and spied this heron, not forty feet away, fishing by the 

 lagoon. He spotted me instantly; but instead of "ducking," I began to 

 sink "by a movement as insensible," etc. This graduated disappearance 

 served perfectly to allay the bird's fears, for he was quite unprepared to 

 see me five minutes later, camera leveled and cocked, around the end of the 

 ridge. An instant of strained apprehension, and he was mine — photo- 

 graphically speaking. 



According to Mr. Chase W. Littlejohn, a large colony of these herons 

 once occupied the heights of a tall row of eucalyptus trees near Redwood 

 City. In spite of the forbidding aspect of this heavenly redoubt, the 

 furor oologicus impelled many a valiant youth year after year to storm 

 these egg-laden heights. Finally, in the spring of 1900, the birds gave up 

 and disappeared from the eucalyptus trees. It was not till the spring of 

 1902 that Mr. Littlejohn found them established, a mile or so from 

 anywhere and six miles from anywhere in particular, in the open saline 

 marsh bordering on San Francisco Bay. Their only cover was obscurity, 

 for the salicornia beds are not half a heron's height. Here Messrs. Car- 

 riger and Pemberton found them, some fifty pairs, in 1903. And here I 

 studied them, now reduced to thirty-two pairs, in company with Mr. 

 Littlejohn, in 191 1. 



Arrived upon the ground, nearly spent with lugging cameras, we 

 found great, hollow, half-spheres (or so they seemed with their upturned 

 edges) of slender sticks, resting on the ground. The eucalyptus withes 

 which composed the nests had been brought from a distance not less than 

 six or eight miles. The colony was quite scattering and the nests in the 

 most populous portion were never less than eight or ten feet apart. 

 Although, at best, there was little protection of bush or sedge, the nesting 

 platforms were always placed by the side of a tide channel, where the 

 general vegetation was heaviest, and they were not conspicuous at over 



1895 



