awking again--won't you tell us about them now, Uncle
Roy?"

A LONG-NECKED FAMILY

[Illustration: Black-Crowned Night Heron.]

"The long-necked, long-legged, long-billed Heron family, to which these
squawkers belong, contains many marsh-loving birds. They are not exactly
what we call shore birds, but live contentedly near any water, where
they can wade and splash about pools and shallows for their food. For
they eat meat, though they never kill birds, like the cannibals. Their
taste is for frogs, lizards, snakes, snails, crabs, fish, and other
small fry; they very seldom eat any warm-blooded animals. Herons are
all rather large birds, the smallest of them being over a foot in
length, while the largest stand fully four feet high."

"Quok! Quok!" came the cry again, this time just over the cabin. Looking
up, the children saw a dark body flying toward the wood belt; something
like a long beak stuck out from its breast in front, and its long legs
were stretched out stiff behind, but these were the only details that
they could distinguish.

"I thought Herons had long necks," said Nat; "but this one doesn't seem
to have any neck at all."

"Ah, but when it flies it folds its long neck, and thus draws its head
down between its shoulders, while some of the Stork and Crane cousins
poke out their heads in flying."

"Are Storks and Cranes cousins of the Herons?" asked Dodo. "I know about
Storks--they are in my fairy book. They live in the north country where
little Tuk came from, and build their nests on roofs between chimneys,
and stand a great deal on one leg in the water looking for frogs. Do
Herons nest on roofs and stand on one leg, Uncle Roy?"

"They do not nest on roofs, but they often stand on one leg when
watching for food, and when sleeping--in fact, they stand so much in
this way that one leg is often stronger than the other, and they most
certainly belong to the guild of Wise Watchers. The Black-crowned Night
Heron who has just flown over is the most familiar member of his family
hereabouts, and quite a sociable bird. He prefers to live the hotel life
of a colony, instead of having a quiet home of his own, and so do almost
all other members of the Heron family. These Night Herons flock back
from warm countries in April, and by early May have built their rough
nests of sticks in trees near the water, or over a marshy place. There
is a colony of twenty or thirty nests on Marsh Island, Olaf tells me; in
my boyh