78 LITTLE FOLKS 
other one, and waits for some imprudent little fish to come near 
him. 
There he'll stand for hours, often with one leg drawn up under 
him, and never move a feather, till his dinner comes up near him, 
when he darts at it quick enough. 
If he gets too hungry to wait for a fish, he will sometimes dig 
up the mud with the sharp claws at the end of his long toes, and 
hunt out frogs and other unfortunate creatures who live in the mud. 
He won't refuse rats or mice either, but usually he eats nothing 
but fish. 
When he has babies to provide for, he has to be very busy, for 
they are hungry little fellows, and there are three or four of them 
together ; so he hunts a long time, till he has enough to feed them 
all before he goes home. 
How do you suppose he carries home his marketing? He has 
no hands like yours, nor baskets like honey bees, nor pockets like 
some squirrels. 
You'd never guess it, but he has a very convenient place — his 
stomach. As he catches a morsel, he just swallows it, and when 
his stomach is full, he goes home, throws out the contents of his 
comical market basket, and feeds the babies. 
He finds this plan convenient, too, on other occasions. He 
has a very unpleasant enemy, the eagle, and poor Mr. Heron has 
no way of defending himself from that fierce fellow, but by flying 
away up above him. 
Now, when one has eaten a hearty meal, he isn't so light as 
though his stomach was empty, so he throws up his dinner in a 
twinkling, and takes to his wings to get away. 
Of course there are several branches of the heron family. 
Those in the picture are the common Grey Heron, and are a little 
over a yard high. They live in the most quiet place they can find, 
near some water, and there's nothing they dislike so much as to 
have noise and confusion around them. 
In olden times, heron hunting was a very fashionable amuse- 
ment, especially with ladies. 
Falcons — birds who are natural enemies to the heron — were 
trained to hunt them in the air, and large parties of ladies and gen- 
tlemen would go out on horseback, carrying falcons on their wrists, 
as I dare say you have seen in old fashioned pictures. Then, 
unfortunate was the heron who came in their way. 
