2 
A NATURALIST ON THE PROWL. 
difference between a great white heron watching at a flower 
for flies, and an able-bodied Londoner standing at a 
street corner selling boot-laces? You may say that the 
Londoner is a lazy scoundrel who adopts that means of 
making a livelihood simply because he hates honest toil. 
I find difficulty in believing that a Londoner’s livelihood 
can be made on the profits of laces at a penny per pair ; 
but granting your argument, it applies equally well to 
the herons. The fact is that indolence is the besetting 
sin of beast and bird as well as man. Necessity keeps 
them up, but if the chance is given them of growing lazy 
and degenerating, they will take it. 
“Sic omnia fatis 
In pejus mere, ac retro sublapsa referri : 
Non aliter quam qui ad verso vix flumine lembum 
Remigiis subigit, si bracchia forte remisit, 
Atque ilium in prasceps prono rapit alveus amni.” 
Not long ago I was encamped near the sea, and every 
morning I saw a pair of kestrels performing the most 
wonderful evolutions on the beach. They were not hover- 
ing high in air, after the manner of their kind, scan- 
ning the ground for some creeping mouse or crouching 
lark, but flew very low, doubling often and darting about, 
as if in pursuit of some nimble prey. It took me some 
