Bird Stories

t for them. They were so brave, these knights of old, that there was nothing that could make them afraid. Dragons even, which looked like crocodiles, with leathe

looked like that; but certain it is that there were dangers dre

ers; and although we do not commonly call them "knights," they still fight for the

if he had lived in olden days, he would probab

urest white; and instead of a veil she wore, draped from her shoulders, snowy plumes of rare beauty, which

her shoulders, snowy

panish moss, and thought she made a picture he could never forget. And when her mate came out to her, in a white wedding-robe like her own, with i

ted no time in hunting for a carpenter or teacher, but went to work with a will, just as if they knew how. It was like playing a game of "five-six, pick up sticks"; only they did not lay them straight but in a scraggly criss-cross sort of platform, with big twigs twelve inches long at the bottom and smaller ones on top. Then, when it looked all ready for a nice soft lining, Ardea laid an egg right on the rough

-just some old dead twigs. I mean that is all you could see; but never think for a minute that there wasn't something

rdea's

Ardea tucked over them; and the little mother was as well pleased as if she had

ext-bush neighbor were so much like the beautiful blue ones of the little blue heron, that it would be very hard for you to tell one from the other. Perhaps Ardea could not have told her own eggs if she

hen, since the quiet patience of the most active birds is natural to them when they are brooding their unhatched babies. Then, too, there was her be

ld raise the feathers on the top of their heads until they looked rather fierce and bristly, and spread out their filmy capes of dainty plumes in a threatening way. That criss-

If there had been string or strands of moss or grass in the nest, they would probably have got all tangled up. As it was, they sometimes nearly spilled out, and saved themselves only by clinging to the firm stic

d dead twigs was a dear hom

ly. 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

er fourth fishing trip. Even when she reached Heron Camp, she did not und

ad 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 kind

other's place is beside her babies. Her heart beat quickly with a new terror, but she stayed, the brave bird stayed! And all about her the other herons stayed also. They had no way to fight for the

was one who could. For danger did not come to Hero

l that, for they carried brutal things in their hands that belched forth smoke and pain and death, and they were cruel of hear

ot lose those beautiful children of hers? If the world should be robbed of Snowy Herons, it would be just so much less lovely, just so much less wonderful. And have they no right to

deeply that he stood alone before the Plume-Hunters and told th

of heart and had sold themselves to do evil for the sake of

which he died, I think, don't you, that Ardea's Sold

ident, by granting them land where no man had a right to touch them; for it makes a true soldier angry when the weak are oppressed, and he said, "It is a disgrace to America that we should permit the sale of aigrettes." Another man, named Woodrow W

Audubon Society sends money to the National Association of Audubon Societies-not much, but a little; and when the Knight of the Snowy Heron was killed, that little helped the National Association to hire anoth

mind for good and all that she will never wear a feather that costs a bird its life; and if every boy makes up his mind for good and all that he will never be a feather-hunting dragon-why there will not be anybody growing up in America to harm A