. Bird-hunting through wild Europe . ble and dissipated Turk. By this timethey had prepared a dinner for us all, to which wedid full justice, though I have to this moment avivid recollection of the nastiness of the chief dish,a sort of maize porridge, very thick and stodgy. The people and the house generally had such awild look about them that I set up the camera fora family group, after which I invited them to lookthrough the camera at one another. It was a funnysight to see about seven or eight women, childrenand boys, all trying to get their heads under thefocusing-cloth together, while a d
. Bird-hunting through wild Europe . ble and dissipated Turk. By this timethey had prepared a dinner for us all, to which wedid full justice, though I have to this moment avivid recollection of the nastiness of the chief dish,a sort of maize porridge, very thick and stodgy. The people and the house generally had such awild look about them that I set up the camera fora family group, after which I invited them to lookthrough the camera at one another. It was a funnysight to see about seven or eight women, childrenand boys, all trying to get their heads under thefocusing-cloth together, while a dirty-looking bratwould be doing his best to look in at the lens at thesame time. It was a hard task to keep them in order,and give them each a chance of seeing doubt this was the first time any of them hadever seen such a thing, and they evidently took mefor something like a magician. I had announced a reward of a napoleon for anynews of a veritable nest of White Herons, andseveral times made expeditions to more or less. ^ THROUGH WILD EUROPE 169 distant localities on false information. Once theytook me to an Albanian village, only to find aStorks nest, and were very aggrieved because Irefused to pay. After all, there was a Storks nestin the village, within 100 yards of where I wasliving, but I suppose the more distant one tothem seemed better value for the money, and abetter excuse to make me pay up. At last, one day (May 27), after many disappoint-ments such as I have described, and many failures,I succeeded in finding a nesting colony of Ardeaalba. I had been wading all day searching severalthick reed-beds. The day was a very hot one, andI was thoroughly exhausted and done up, so muchso that several times I had been obliged to sit downin the water and rest on clumps of reeds. Hardlyable to drag myself along, I was on my way slowlyback to the boat where I had left wine and food,when suddenly the unmistakable grunting of breed-ing Herons attracted my attention. On
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