. The birds' calendar . on the border of the Lake, a jet blackstripe on its head and back, feet and legs brightlycolored, and its long dark bill sunk in the feath-ers of the breast, as if fast asleep. In its im-movable position and bare surroundings it wasa most picturesque emblem of solitude, one ofthose slight but suggestive touches in nature thatone is constantly stumbling upon. In my helpless ignorance of what it was, Igrasped at a straw, and asked a policeman nearby if he could enlighten me. Now, experiencehas taught me that, like many other people inthe world, a policeman feels a deep se
. The birds' calendar . on the border of the Lake, a jet blackstripe on its head and back, feet and legs brightlycolored, and its long dark bill sunk in the feath-ers of the breast, as if fast asleep. In its im-movable position and bare surroundings it wasa most picturesque emblem of solitude, one ofthose slight but suggestive touches in nature thatone is constantly stumbling upon. In my helpless ignorance of what it was, Igrasped at a straw, and asked a policeman nearby if he could enlighten me. Now, experiencehas taught me that, like many other people inthe world, a policeman feels a deep sense of hu-miliation if obliged to confess that he is unableto answer any question propounded to him; andthis one in particular, who was not better thanhis fathers, promptly and with half contemptu-ous tone told me it was a duck. His assurancewas of course not lessened by the fact that hehad not fully seen the bird. At first I feltcrushed by his wisdom and my own stupidity,forgetting for the instant that the creature in. BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON April question, had no more the -build of a duckthan of an owl; but I soon rallied sufficiently toask him if ducks roost in trees. This flank firerouted him, and, recovering my self-respect, Iapplied to a more infallible source of scientificinformation—the Natural History Museum—andfound the bird to be a black-crowned nightheron. Lest any one, wise in the ways of birds, shouldaccuse me of an egregious slip in ornithologicallore, I hasten to confess that ducks sometimesrt^i9 roost in trees; indeed, one species finds itsnest in the holes of trees. Yet I was fully justi-fied in the bold front I presented to this guar-dian of the peace. I challenged him with therule—the only weapon that a person of his sci-entific attainments could safely use. An excep-tion is always a dangerous article in the handsof the inexperienced. The herons are one of several mournfullypoetic families of birds that gracefully adornmany a landscape, real and pic
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishern, booksubjectbirds
