"Because the gray heron does not go southwards in the month of June; and because he never flies so low."
"What has that to say to it?"
"I will tell you. I was making the midnight round to relieve the guard at the Porta Latina. From the battlements of the tower I looked out sharply into the night. Nothing was to be seen, and nothing to be heard, except the song of the nightingale. Then suddenly I heard the cry of the gray heron."
"They are not numerous here," said Severus; "but they do appear in the stagnant waters and in the marshes of the Ivarus."
"Certainly; but the cry did not come from the river; it sounded on this side of the stream, out of the mountain forest."
"Making an eyrie there, perhaps."
"It was the migratory call. And they migrate in August. And after the first call there was a second, a third, a fourth answer, till the sounds died away in the distance."
"The echo from the hills!"
"That is conceivable. But the cry did not come from high in the air; it came from below, from the ground, up to me on the battlements of the tower. The heron does not fish at night."
The old man smiled pleasantly. "Do, my Cornelius, believe the old huntsman. It fishes at night when it has a brood to feed. I have myself caught one in the morning in the fishing-net which I had set the evening before."