“ After we have got our birds, and have picked the few feathers 
we want from each, we plan another onslaught in another locality. 
If we are lucky we may soon get located four or five miles away 
amid reeds and foliage under cover of darkness, so as to be ready for 
more shooting the next morning. 
“ The shores of the lagoons of Central America and the southern 
part of Mexico abound in alligators, while all manner of pestiferous 
stinging flies, gnats, and mosquitoes are in the air. We have 
suffered tortures from insect pests, and one of my hunting men died 
in agony from the poison of gnats several years ago. 
“ You want me to tell you about the egrets and the herons 
themselves, do you ? They are, as you know, of the crane family 
of birds. The egrets are small, much like the bitterns and boatbills 
of the same family. Herons usually measure four feet from bill to 
tip of the tail. Their expanse of wing is often seven feet, and they 
stand about forty inches high. Their weight is from three to four 
pounds. The hunting season for both egrets and herons begins in 
February and closes in September. It is now at its very height, 
and I shall go back down the coast in a few days to resume shooting 
operations. After August the feathers of herons and egrets become 
coarse and hard, and are in no demand in the best markets. Both 
varieties of the birds are as white as snow, so far as I have ever 
seen, but people from Peru and Argentine Republic say they have 
seen blue and red and even black herons. Herons are slow of flight, 
and, like the cranes that are known all over the world, they have a 
very graceful, dignified way of drawing their attenuated legs up 
under them and sailing away to lofty eminences by an occasional 
flap of their wings. The egrets are more fussy and nervous creatures. 
They are as watchful as weasels. Both varieties of birds make nests of 
sticks and large twigs, and both have been known to keep their nests 
for several years at a time, although I myself have never been able 
to observe that point, because my advent in a colony of the crane 
family means war and death in short order. Egrets usually lay six 
eggs, and herons four. The eggs of both are of a sea green hue. A 
heron does not have its best feathers until it is ten months old, and 
the plumes of an egret are not worth $28 an ounce until the bird is 
over a year old. 
“ I suppose a host of people will wonder why I am telling so 
many facts about my business to a newspaper man. But I don’t 
care how many men want to go into my vocation. I shall give it 
up myself in a year or so more and come back to civilization to stay, 
but I know my health has been permanently injured by the miasma 
poison I have taken into my system down in those Mexican and 
Central American lagoons.” 
Copies of this Leaflet, 3d. per doz., or is. 8d. per ioo, can be obtained from 
the Society’s Publishing Department, Knowledge Office, 326, High Holborn, 
London, W.C.; or from the Hon. Sec. of the Society for the Protection of 
Birds, Mrs. F. E. Lemon, Hillcrest, Redhill, Surrey. 
