said with an air of giving a pleasant bit of news: “Our 
storks are back again from their long winter trip to Africa. _ 
- Have you seen them yet? I saw one this morning on. a 
chimney, as I came to the shop.” | 
| The Northwest merchants might not give this par- : 
ticular morning greeting, but they have two kinds of birds ~ 
_ that may be seen that add as much to the landscape, as _ 
does any stork to the country in which it lives. Yet these — 
birds, the Great Blue Heron and the Northwest Coast > 
Heron are often shot by thoughtless hunters, because they, 
also, like a small fish along with frogs, crabs, or other water 
delicacies, for a meal. Then, there is a belief that these 
birds act as sentinels to warn other animals that man and 
danger is near and the harmless creatures pay for this 
belief. 
Often, at night, in a locality which the heroin uses as 
his fishing district, he may be heard by those who are wake- 
ful, giving a hoarse croak as his quiet is disturbed. Other 
_ fishermen, also, prefer to wander alone and the heron > 
should not sacrifice his life because of love for lonely places. 
This instinct and their great size when matched against 
- man’s cunning and gun, get these birds into an_ unfair, 
- unequal struggle. Unless they are protected by law and 
thoughtfulness, they will follow the Passenger Pigeon and — 
the Eskimo Curlew into “No Man’s Land.” 
: If the hunter has an artist’s eye, or a memory whieh | 
recalls his own efforts to satisfy his appetite, so that he 
holds his trigger finger long enough really to see a heron, 
as it patrols the shore of an inland waterway, or stands on — 
_ ahalf-submerged log or boulder, the bird will be safe. The 
_ hunter will save his ammunition, and give others a chance to 
_ share in the thrill which comes to almost any person when 
he realizes, as his boat winds its way along the margins of © 
_ the water, that the queer, crooked object on the branch — 
of a fir tree, or the bit of motion on the twisted mound of © 
_ driftwood, is a mass of feathers on a 42 to 50 inch heron. 
135 
