"See, here comes the moon up out of the water and it makes a shiny path up to our feet and Olaf is rowing back right down it and the stars have stopped winking and are getting dim," said eager little Dodo, with an "and" wherever she ought to have stopped to breathe, as usual. "Hark! the Herons are squawking again—won't you tell us about them now, Uncle Roy?"
A LONG-NECKED FAMILY [ [!-- IMG --]
"The long-necked, long-legged, long-billed Heron family, to which these squawkers belong, contains many marsh-loving birds. They are not exactly what we call shore birds, but live contentedly near any water, where they can wade and splash about pools and shallows for their food. For they eat meat, though they never kill birds, like the cannibals. Their taste is for frogs, lizards, snakes, snails, crabs, fish, and other small fry; they very seldom eat any warm-blooded animals. Herons are all rather large birds, the smallest of them being over a foot in length, while the largest stand fully four feet high."
"Quok! Quok!" came the cry again, this time just over the cabin. Looking up, the children saw a dark body flying toward the wood belt; something like a long beak stuck out from its breast in front, and its long legs were stretched out stiff behind, but these were the only details that they could distinguish.
"I thought Herons had long necks," said Nat; "but this one doesn't seem to have any neck at all."
"Ah, but when it flies it folds its long neck, and thus draws its head down between its shoulders, while some of the Stork and Crane cousins poke out their heads in flying."
"Are Storks and Cranes cousins of the Herons?" asked Dodo. "I know about Storks—they are in my fairy book. They live in the north country where little Tuk came from, and build their nests on roofs between chimneys, and stand a great deal on one leg in the water looking for frogs. Do Herons nest on roofs and stand on one leg, Uncle Roy?"
"They do not nest on roofs, but they often stand on one leg when watching for food, and when sleeping—in fact, they stand so much in this way that one leg is often stronger than the other, and they most certainly belong to the guild of Wise Watchers. The Black-crowned Night Heron who has just flown over is the most familiar member of his family hereabouts, and quite a sociable bird. He prefers to live the hotel life of a colony, instead of having a quiet home of his own, and so do almost all other members of the Heron family. These Night Herons flock back from warm countries in April, and by early May have built their rough nests of sticks in trees near the water, or over a marshy place. There is a colony of twenty or thirty nests on Marsh Island, Olaf tells me; in my boyhood days there used to be hundreds of them.
"In nesting-time a heronry, as such a colony is called, is a very noisy, dirty place; for they do not keep their homes neat and nice, like the tidy land birds. Mr. and Mrs. Night Heron call hoarsely enough to each other, but imagine three or four baby Herons crying from every nest—truly the parents can have but little rest, for day and night they must go frogging or fishing, to fill the stomachs of their red-eyed awkward children.