gs for nearly or quite six feet. Its character for suspiciousness may
be gathered from what different writers have said about it. "He is most
jealously vigilant and watchful of man," says Wilson, "so that those who
wish to succeed in shooting the heron must approach him entirely unseen,
and by stratagem." "Extremely suspicious and shy," says Audubon.
"Unless under very favorable circumstances, it is almost hopeless to
attempt to approach it. To walk up towards one would be a fruitless
adventure." Dr. Brewer's language is to the same effect,--"At all times
very vigilant and difficult of approach."

This, then, was the bird which I now had under my field-glass, as I lay
at full length behind the friendly bayberry bushes. Up to this point,
for aught that appeared, he was quite unaware of my espionage. Like all
the members of his family that I have ever seen, he possessed so much
patience that it required much patience to watch him. For minutes
together he stood perfectly still, and his movements, as a rule, were
either so slow as to be all but imperceptible, or so rapid as almost to
elude the eye. Boys who have killed frogs--which was pretty certainly my
heron's present employment--will need no explanation of his behavior.
They know very well that, if the fatal club is to do its work, the
slowest kind of preliminary motion must be followed by something like a
flash of lightning.

I watched the bird for perhaps half an hour, admiring his handsome blue
wings as now and then he spread them, his dainty manner of lifting his
long legs, and the occasional flashing stroke of his beak. My range was
short (for a field-glass, I mean), and, all in all, I voted it "a fine
show."

When I wearied of my position I rose and advanced upon the heron in full
sight, expecting every moment to see him fly. To my astonishment he held
his ground. Down the hillside I went, nearer and nearer, till I came to
a barbed-wire fence, which bounded the cranberry field close by the
heron's pool. As I worried my way through this abominable obstruction,
he stepped into a narrow, shallow ditch and started slowly away. I made
rapidly after him, whereupon he got out of the ditch and strode on ahead
of me. By this time I was probably within twenty yards of him, so near
that, as he twisted his long neck every now and then, and looked at me
through his big yellow eyes, I began to wonder whether he might not take
it into his head to turn the tables upon me. A sta