Yes, he is very like a heron, and, do you know, there is a very good reason for that, because the White Egret _is_ a heron. Some birds, I must tell you, have names which are like our surnames, and show the family they belong to. As long as you only know a boy's or girl's Christian name--Reginald or Bertram or Dorothy or Norah or Wilhelmina--you don't know a bit what family they belong to; but as soon as you know their _surnames_--Smith or Brown or Jones or Thompson or Robinson--why then you do--and it is just the same with birds. Heron is really a surname, only the bird that has it, here in England, has not a Christian name as well--unless "common" is one, for he is called the Common Heron. But White Egret is a Christian name and the surname to it is Heron--for the White Egret belongs to the Heron family. That is why he is so tall and gaunt and stilty, for a heron is always like that--it is the family figure--and so now, when I tell you that _he_ stands in the water and catches fish, you will know why he does that, too; fish is the family dish, and no heron would think of going without it, for long. But now, let me tell you about those beautiful feathers which the poor White Egret has. They grow only on his back--about the middle of it--and droop down to a little way over his tail, so that they are a foot or more long. You remember what I explained to you about the feathers in the tail of the Lyre-bird, and those that make the plumes in the beautiful Birds of Paradise--how the barbs of the feather on each side of the quill have no barbules to hold them together, so that they fall apart and wave about like beautiful, soft, silky threads. If you have forgotten, then you must look back for it, because I should not explain it better here than I do there, and, besides, it would be twice over. Well, these feathers are made in the same way, only they are of a pure, shining white--like all the rest of this birds plumage--and although they are as soft as silk they are stiff at the same time, and so smooth that they look like the delicate flakings from a piece of beautiful, pure, polished ivory. Imagine a little fountain of ivory threads all shooting up together into the air, quite straight at first, and then bending over and drooping down in the most delicate, graceful way imaginable. That is what a plume of those feathers looks like, when they have been taken out and tied together, but I wish, myself, that they did not look nearly so beautiful, for it is because of those beautiful plumes, that the poor bird is being killed and killed and becoming scarcer and scarcer, every day. For the women whose hearts the little demon has frozen, wear these plumes in their hats and in their hair, and they are called "ospreys," and are very fashionable indeed.