i5 2 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



a long'course of dark nights occurs, he becomes thin 

 and lean ; but when the moon is propitious, he con- 

 sumes vast quantities of victuals, thereby inducing 

 a plumpness and fatness of body. The flesh when 

 young^tastes, it is said, like hare ; but more frequently 

 it is foul, tough, and fishy. We have had no 

 personal experience of the flavour of cooked heron. 



The incubating period is attended with much fuss 

 and consequence. Sometimes the birds build their 

 nests on the ground ; but more commonly the dead 

 branch or extreme summit of some tree is selected for 

 the purpose. Any tree sufficiently tall and strong is 

 deemed suitable. A larch, birch, fir, willow, oak, 

 beech, sycamore, elm, have each been seen tenanted 



Fig. 87. — The Heron (Ardra cinerca). 



He certainly does not " look " like as if competent to 

 furnish a " most excellent dish." 



We have read somewhere an elaborate French recipe 

 for the cooking of sea-anemones ; but one would just 

 as soon think of appeasing his appetite with their 

 flabby flesh, as of experimenting upon the tasty or 

 nutritious qualities of a sauced or fricasseed heron- 

 shaw . 



A heronry is a spectacle of exceeding interest. 



by an incubating heron. As many as eighty nests 

 have been seen on one oak and frequently the branches 

 are bent considerably earthwards by reason of the 

 great number and weight of the nests. The nest is 

 composed of small branches of dry herbs, rushes, and 

 feathers, and its form is like that of the rook, only 

 larger and coated with a white and plastery exudation. 

 Sometimes indeed they build in a rookery, or in very 

 low trees, and occasionally on an island of some 



