sh 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_.

Now, of course, Ardea could not know about this, or that the
Plume-Hunters had come to steal her wedding feathers. But she knew well
enough that danger was at hand, and that in times of trouble a mother's