WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
The young heron loitered by the pool until he 
was comparatively strong on the wing. Then 
he saw the open country, from the demesne 
wall to the foot of Slieve Corrig. As men 
draw roads and railways on their maps, so the 
herons mark theirs with pools and watercourses 
the land between is waste and profitless ; 
the sluggish streams, studded with wider 
pools, lay across the bogland like rosaries of 
silver beads. There was a little west wind 
which blew round the breast of Slieve Corrig 
and ruffled the still pools. The heron felt the 
mud squelch up, and the tadpoles wriggle 
away between his toes. Truly a land of 
promise where it was good to be alive, but 
was there nothing to eat in it ? He was 
King of the Bog, but that first day he was 
fated to play jackal to the bank-rat's hunting. 
He saw the old moorhen whizz past him like 
a driven leaf, but it conveyed no meaning 
to him, nor did the splash of the rat's foiled 
spring in the rushes. How should the 
moorhen's chick recognize his long legs among 
the iris spears where they stood, thigh deep ? 
It charged into them like a little torpedo, and 
the shock brought it, gasping, to the surface. 
Too late it dived again, but the heron 
whisked it up, bayoneted. So much for the 
tale now for its sequel. He made nothing 
220 
