10 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 
creep over the little hollow and its murky pond,—slowly up the eastern 
slope. Across the hollow of heaven is one mad striving of color as the deep- 
ening blue of the eastern sky begins to devour the riotous glowing of the 
west; and high up in the delicate blending of violet-and gold, a whistling 
flock of blackbirds pursue their way toward some favored roost. 
‘Twilight: my friend Krenschen has gone to town; over the pond a 
sudden hush has fallen. Into the brief interval the chirping of a solitary 
cricket drifts; a frog twangs gutturally. “—Then—a soft rustling of wings 
from the mud flat—a series of low, rasping croaks, and half the great army 
is in-the air; another susurration like the soughing of wind in the aspens, 
and the last of the egrets are a-wing. Slowly, majestically they mount over 
the pond . . . there is the unforgettable picture of their white figures 
against the deepening blue of the east—reflecting the last delicate bloom 
of the afterglow. They wheel, break ranks and ‘strain away over the 
woods, their spectral figures beating silently into that transparent dusk. 
Entranced, I stand gazing after this fading vision, asking myself if what 
the eye sees can be true or is merely an apparition,—some spirit of the 
tropics come to haunt our boreal sloughs like a will-o’-the-wisp. . 
. Rain? it could not rain! And yet it-did,—torrentially and in- 
cessantly with the passing of August,—filling every gully and ravine, wash- 
ing out crops, turning fields to lakes. I stood on the embankment again 
on a grey September morning; not an egret was in sight; only the wild 
plaintive cry of the killdeers and yellowlegs came to my ears. I found 
Krenschen feeding his chickens... . 
‘Where are the herons today?” I called, though I knew the worst 
had happened. ‘“The herons? ‘They are gone!’’—his blue eyes were wide 
with the wonder of it. “I haf not seen one since the other night.” 
‘That was all. I never saw the egrets at “the pond” again though I 
returned many times during the ensuing days. “True, I continued to see 
them in small groups on the lakes, and received an authentic report of a 
subsequent gathering on Duck Lake a mile to the south; there were seventy 
in that flock—it must have been the same one that used to frequent the 
pond. But so far as I know an egret was never seen there again. 
Perhaps the sight of such a congregation of these beautiful birds is 
not so remarkable after all; but the swift recovery of the egrets from their 
near-extinction by plume hunters a few years ago—the recovery of their 
trust in man—is very significant. To me it means that the extermination 
of the Passenger Pigeon will never be quite forgotten. We know now that, 
for the future, we shall reap as we have sown; it is at least reassuring 
to know that we are striving to plant well. 
