Spearbill 
the Heron. 
(97) 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
Spearbill the Heron. 
By G. H. LEWIN. 
The nest in which Spearbill first saw the peep 
of day was one of a goodly number built in a 
row of tall and rugged elms which had stood 
defying storm and wind on a low hillside for 
more years than could be told. Stretching out 
before them for some half a mile or more was a 
fine old fish-pond, from which the monks of old 
time had taken many a fish to help them through 
the hungry times of Lent. In those old days 
the Herons too often found their way on to 
the festive board of monastery and hall, when 
monk and lord kept high revel with any passing 
guest. 
Tradition said that if the Herons left the park 
the monastery walls would fall and leave the 
owners desolate ; but that evil, as yet, had not been 
wrought, for the Herons still held their yearly 
carnival of love-making’ and rearing a crowd of 
long-legged, gawky youngsters, who gave pro¬ 
mise of keeping the old place safe for genera¬ 
tions yet to come. 
No monks now walked its ancient halls, for 
long ago a mighty lord, by some trick of peace 
or chance of war, had gained it for himself, and 
it was now, and all the land around, under the 
sway of children of his name and blood, whose 
each successive generation heard the same old 
legend of what should happen did the Herons 
ever leave their old, old home. 
Herons had lived in the woods even before the 
monks had come and made the dam which held 
back the stream and formed the fishpond, for 
only a mile away to the east all around had once 
been marsh and fen. Most of this was gone, 
but a few imeres were left, and the rivers and 
drains and little streams gave up their prey to 
the long-legged, long-billed fishers who travelled 
many miles in search of food. 
Spearbill as a Baby. 
When Spearbill was first hatched he was ugly 
and small, very unlike the fine bird he afterwards 
became. He was, however, carefully tended by 
his parents and grew wonderfully quickly, so 
that in a few weeks he was long-legged and 
gawky, and used to stand with his brothers and 
sisters on the edge of the nest all day long, wait¬ 
ing for the fishes, frogs and various catches his 
parents brought for food. 
The din all around during those long summer 
days was almost unbearable to anything but the 
Herons; each youngster in the colony, not satis¬ 
fied with waiting for its own parents to bring 
food, must needs set up a chuckling and (Screech¬ 
ing every time an old Heron appeared in sight, 
flying steadily with well-filled crop towards the 
trees, and not stopping its cries until the old bird 
had fed its own young and was away again. 
The parent birds worked hard and fed the 
youngsters well, and so, as the summer pro¬ 
gressed they began to stretch their growing 
wings and hop from branch to branch on the tops 
of the old elms, until they found themselves able 
to flutter, and at last, with much beating of 
wings, to fly short distances. 
Spearbill had seen several youngsters already 
open their wings, and, as much by accident as 
design, go fluttering down to the edge of the 
pool. One day he was wondering whether he 
could do it, and was balancing in the 'wind and 
spreading his wings, when he loosed 1 his long 
legs for a moment from the branch he was stand¬ 
ing on, and before he, could get a hold again a 
gust of wind had carried'him clear, and he found 
himself flapping to the ground, startled, but quite 
safe and sound, and somewhat elated with his 
flight. 
His Education. 
His parents came to his call and fed him, tak¬ 
ing him along the side of the pool to a.safer place 
and trying to get him to fly over to the island in 
the middle; but although he tried, and found he 
could fly for a short distance, he did not feel safe 
to cross the water. 
For the next few days he roosted among the 
bushes in a thicket near the elms, but day after 
day he found his strength increasing, until he 
could stretch his wings, and with steady flap¬ 
pings reach his old home again. 
One day before he had left the nest the whole 
Heronry were disturbed and frightened, for in 
the trees where the Rooks bred not far away there 
was a great commotion; the old Rooks were 
sailing high overhead, cawing frantically, and 
the young ones in the trees kept dropping from 
the branches as the sharp reports of guns fired 
by men beneath were heard. 
Spearbill had up to that lime never seen a man, 
but the men walked under the trees on which 
the Herons’ nests were, and pointed and talked 
so much that the old Herons got as frightened 
as the Rooks. However, they went away and 
left them all in peace; but Spearbill did not for¬ 
get, and always afterwards feared any men he 
saw. 
When all his sisters and brothers could fly their 
parents took them down the stream and taught 
them how to wade in the shallows and fish for 
eels and roach, and how to find the frogs and 
worms and other things of which they make their 
food. One day his father caught a large water- 
rat, and showed his children how to kill it by 
banging it against the ground; they were not 
particular as to food as long as it was meat, 
either fish, flesh or fowl; all was devoured by 
the hungry youngsters to satisfy their growing 
appetites. 
