| your opera glasses show that the neck curves so as to bring 
the large bill parallel with, but just above, the body, you 
should enter heron in your notebook. His heavy, sluggish 
flight, if you have become skillful in hunting with glasses, 
will give you time to study his movement, and fancy what 
you could do, if you too, had a spread of seventy a Seati of aS 
feathers to carry you through the air. 
If you are north of Olympia, Washington, in the coast 
region, your entry can be more exact and be written Fannin, 
or Northwest Coast Heron; anywhere else i in the Northwest, 
your entry should be Great Blue Heron. The chief 
_ differences between these varieties is that the first bird is 
a little smaller and darker, but their habits are the same. 
There are fortunate people, who live along some bit of 
- our many leagues of water in the Northwest, who know this. 
bird as a nextdoor resident. One said: “‘My first glimpse of © | 
a Northwest Coast Heron, as he sat on a horizontal, dead 
_ branch of a hemlock at the gate of the bird farm of a friend, 
almost took my breath. Gasping, I forgot this bird’s love 
of quiet and shouted 1 in 1 Joy for my friend to come and share 
_ my pleasure.” 
Disturbed by the noise, he indolentiy antolded his huge | 
_ wings and, with a mighty thrush of his spindling, black legs, 
stepped out into the air, which held him as faithfully as did 
- the foothold he left; leaving behind him harsh ile se 
_ which seemed to fill the atmosphere. 
The friend said that he had been a tenant of here for 
_ many years, and often has she disturbed him in his medit- 
ations, or his fishing. There is a huge boulder near her ~ 
_ bulkhead, covered at high tide, which is often occupied by 
this solitary creature. There he will stand for long periods, 
as quietly as an Indian perched on the red branch of a 
- Madrone watching for arun of smelt. The heron, seemingly, 
_ has no other desire than to look at the reflections in the 
- smooth water, but let a heedless crab or fish move, and he > 
throws himself head first under the surface and comes out 
het 
