to another; now in great
companies, and with protracted all-day or all-night flights. Who could
ask a better stimulus for his imagination than the annual southing of
this mighty host? Each member of it knows his own time and his own
course. On such a day the snipe will be in such a meadow, and the golden
plover in such a field. Some, no doubt, will lose their way. Numbers
uncounted will perish by storm and flood; numbers more, alas, by human
agency. As I write, with the sad note of a bluebird in my ear, I can see
the sea-beaches and the marshes lined with guns. But the army will push
on; they will come to their desired haven; for there is a spirit in
birds, also, "and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them
understanding."

A GREAT BLUE HERON.

"Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness?"
SHAKESPEARE.

The watcher of birds in the bush soon discovers that they have
individual as well as race characteristics. They are not things, but
persons,--beings with intellect, affections, and will,--and a strong
specific resemblance is found to be consistent with no small measure of
personal variation. All robins, we say, look and act alike. But so do
all Yankees; yet it is part of every Yankee's birthright to be different
from every other Yankee. Nature abhors a copy, it would seem, almost as
badly as she abhors a vacuum. Perhaps, if the truth were known, a copy
_is_ a vacuum.

I walked down the bay shore of Cape Cod one summer morning, and at a
certain point climbed the steep cliff to the railway track, meaning to
look into a large cranberry meadow where, on previous visits, I had
found a few sandpipers and plovers. Near one end of the perfectly level,
sand-covered meadow was a little pool, and my first glance in that
direction showed me a great blue heron wading about its edge. With as
much quietness as possible I stole out of sight, and then hastened up
the railway through a cut, till I had the sun at my back and a hill
between me and the bird. Then I began a stealthy approach, keeping
behind one object after another, and finally going down flat upon the
ground (to roll in the soil is an excellent method of cleansing one's
garments on Cape Cod) and crawling up to a patch of bayberry bushes, the
last practicable cover.

Here let me say that the great blue heron is, as its name implies, a big
bird, standing almost as high as an ordinary man, and spreading its
win