THE GREAT BLUE HERON 
151 
to have made a special effort to harmonise the form, 
colour, and movements of the bird with the tall, rich 
vegetation of the marshes ♦ 
With the awakening of the far and hushed north 
the Heron moves to his summer home, but does not 
feel impelled to seek the distant regions beyond the 
invasion of man* Wherever tall trees reasonably 
remote from inquisitive human meddling afford a 
nesting-place he may decide to locate* If left un- 
molested he will come season after season to the same 
locality, repairing such damage as the passing storms 
may have done to the lofty platform of lodged sticks 
that serves him as a nest* A heron family grows in 
noisy importunity as the time for leaving the nest 
approaches* Though the brood may remain silent 
while the mother is abroad gathering a supply of Fish 
or Frogs, perhaps occasionally putting forth a long 
neck to look around over the treetops, every return 
is greeted with a harsh and rasping uproar that seems 
almost to profane the stillness of the forest* The 
parents make long excursions to distant marshes, and 
when the young, fully grown, but immature in 
plumage and colour, pass from parental care they 
make their way leisurely southward from marsh to 
marsh and from swamp to swamp* They seem 
reluctant to leave, but take alarm when the noisy 
slaughter of the game birds disturbs the quiet of their 
favourite haunts* 
