"He is of a slate-gray color, which you might not think blue at all, and he too wears fine plumes, on his head, breast, and back. He is the largest bird of our hundred, being quite as tall as you are, Miss Dodo. If you ever see one of these birds standing on the edge of the mill pond, you will never forget it; for it does not seem like an American bird, but rather like a visitor from strange lands. You may imagine it to be an Egyptian princess in disguise, waiting for a barge to come down the river, rowed by black slaves and conveying a prince all glittering with jewels, who is bringing a ring cut with mystic letters to break the spell--as such things are managed in fairy tales. [Illustration: Blue Heron.] "This Blue Heron, you will find, has no sweeter voice than his night-flying cousin, and, like the latter, nests in colonies in the trees; but afterward he travels about alone, as the Bittern does." The Snowy Egret (The Bonnet Martyr.) Length about two feet. Pure white all over, with a bunch of many long slender plumes growing between the shoulders, and shorter ones on the head and neck, in the nesting season. Feet and legs black. Toes yellow. Bill black and yellow. A Citizen of temperate and tropical America. A member of the guild of Wise Watchers, whose food and habits are the same as those of most other Herons, and who, if he does us no special good service, is perfectly innocent, and should never be butchered to make a woman's Easter holiday bonnet. He has a larger brother called the American White Egret, as pure white as himself, but three feet or more instead of only two feet long, with the plumes hanging down over his tail instead of curled up, and none growing on his head. The Great Blue Heron (Or Blue Giant) Length about four feet. Plumage mostly slate-gray or bluish-ash, but black and white on the head and each side of the breast, and chestnut on the bend of the wing. A crest on the back of the head, a fringe of long feathers at the root of the neck in front, and another on the back in the breeding season. Feathers on upper part of the legs reddish-brown, the bare scaly part black; bill yellow and greenish, with black on top; bare skin between it and the eyes blue. A Citizen of North America. A member of the guild of Wise Watchers who is wise enough to mind his own business and do nobody any harm, though he is not inclined to be sociable with House People. "I think we had best be going toward the house," said Olaf, glancing at the sky; "there's thunder-heads racing up." So the children, always ready for something new, started eagerly, and bewildered Olaf with questions about clouds and weather signs all the way home. CHAPTER XXIX UP THE RIVER