and I were looking, and for them realization came quickly.
The sun had sunk still lower, and great clouds had begun to spread
their robes and choose their tints for the coming pageant.

And now the vanguard of the homing host appeared,--black dots against
blue and white and salmon,--thin, gaunt forms with slow-moving wings
which cut the air through half the sky. The little herons and I
watched them come--first a single white egret, which spiralled down,
just as I had many times seen the first returning Spad eddy downward
to a cluster of great hump-backed hangars; then a trio of tricolored
herons, and six little blues, and after that I lost count. It seemed
as if these tiny islands were magnets drawing all the herons in the
world.

Parrakeets whirl roostwards with machine-like synchronism of flight;
geese wheel down in more or less regular formation; but these herons
concentrated along straight lines, each describing its individual
radius from the spot where it caught its last fish or shrimp to its
nest or the particular branch on which it will spend the night. With a
hemicircle of sufficient size, one might plot all of the hundreds upon
hundreds of these radii, and each would represent a distinct line, if
only a heron's width apart.

At the height of the evening's flight there were sometimes fifty
herons in sight at once, beating steadily onward until almost
overhead, when they put on brakes and dropped. Some, as the little
egrets, were rather awkward; while the tricolors were the most
skilful, sometimes nose-diving, with a sudden flattening out just in
time to reach out and grasp a branch. Once or twice, when a fitful
breeze blew at sunset, I had a magnificent exhibition of aeronautics.
The birds came upwind slowly, beating their way obliquely but
steadily, long legs stretched out far behind the tail and swinging
pendulum-like whenever a shift of ballast was needed. They apparently
did not realize the unevenness of the wind, for when they backed air,
ready to descend, a sudden gust would often undercut them and over
they would go, legs, wings, and neck sprawling in mid-air. After one
or two somersaults or a short, swift dive, they would right
themselves, feathers on end, and frantically grasp at the first leaf
or twig within reach. Panting, they looked helplessly around,
reorientation coming gradually.

At each arrival, a hoarse chorus went up from hungry throats, and
every youngster within reach scrambled wildly