It would take some time before the babies of Ardea would be able to straighten up on their long, slim legs and go wading. Until that day came, their father and mother would have to feed them well and often. Now the marsh where the snowy herons went fishing, where the shallow water was a favorite swimming-place for little fishes, was ten miles or more from their nest. Some kinds of herons, perhaps most kinds, are quiet and stately when they hunt, standing still and waiting for their game to come to them, or moving very slowly and carefully. But Ardea and the other snowy herons ran about in a lively way, spying out the little fishes with their bright yellow eyes, and catching them up quickly in their black beaks. After swallowing a supply of food, Ardea took wing and returned across the miles to her young. Standing on the edge of her nest and reaching down with her long neck, she took the bill of one of her babies in her own mouth, and dropped part of what she had swallowed out of her big throat down into his small one. When she had fed her babies and preened her pretty feathers a bit, she was off again on the ten-mile flight; for many a long journey she and her mate must take ere their little ones could feed themselves. But ten miles over and over and over again were as nothing to the love she had for her children; and faithfully as she had brooded her eggs, she now began the task of providing their meals. She seemed so happy each time she returned, that perhaps she was a little bit worried while she was away; but there is no reason to think she really was afraid that any great harm could come to them. Certainly she was unprepared for what she found when she flew back from her fourth fishing trip. Even when she reached Heron Camp, she did not understand. There are some things it is not given the mind of a bird to know. She could not know, poor dear, that there were people in the world who coveted her beautiful wedding plumes. Women there were, who wished to make themselves look better by wearing the feathers that Nature had given snowy herons for their very own. And men there were, who thought to make themselves grander in the dress of their organization by walking about with heron plumes waving on their heads. The two kinds of white herons with wonderful plumes that have been put to such uses are called Egrets and Snowy Egrets, and the feathers, when they are stripped from the birds, are called by the French name of _aigrette_.