GREAT HERON. 297 



meadows and sea marshes, this stately bird roams at pleasure, feasting 

 on the never-failing magazines of frogs, fish, seeds and insects with 

 which they abound, and of which he probably considers himself the 

 sole lord and proprietor. I have several times seen the Bald Eagle 

 attack and tease the Great Heron ; but whether for sport, or to make 

 him disgorge his fish, I am uncertain. 



The common Heron of Europe {Ardea major) very much resembles 

 the present, which might, as usual, have probably been ranked as the 

 original stock, of which the present was a mere degenerated species, 

 were it not that the American is greatly superior in size and weight to 

 the European species, the former measuring four feet four inches, and 

 weighing upwards of seven pounds ; the latter three feet three inches, 

 and rarely weighing more than four pounds. Yet with the exception 

 of size, and the rust-colored thighs of the present, they are extremely 

 alike. The common Heron of Europe, however, is not an inhabitant 

 of the United States. 



The Great Heron does not receive his full plumage during the first 

 season, nor until the summer of the second. In the first season the 

 young birds are entirely destitute of the white plumage of the crown, 

 and the long pointed feathers of the back, shoulders, and breast. In 

 this dress I have frequently shot them in autumn. But in the third 

 year, both males and females have assumed their complete dress, and, 

 contrary to all the European accounts which I have met with, both are 

 then so nearly alike in color and markings, as scarcely to be distin- 

 guished from each other ; both having the long flowing crest, and all the 

 ornamental white pointed plumage of the back and breast. Indeed this 

 sameness in the plumage of the males and females, when arrived at 

 their perfect state, is a characteristic of the whole of the genus with 

 which I am acquainted. Whether it be different with those of Europe, 

 or that the young and imperfect birds have been hitherto mistaken for 

 females I will not pretend to say, though I think the latter conjecture 

 highly probable, as the Night Raven (^Ardea nycticorax) has been known 

 for several centuries, and yet in all their accounts the sameness of the 

 colors and plumage of the male and female of that bird is nowhere men- 



When the haunt of the Heron is found out, three or four small roach, or dace, are 

 to be procured, and each of them is to be baited on a wire, with a strong hook at 

 the end, entering the wire just at the gills, and letting it run just under the skin 

 to the tail; the fish will live in this manner for five or six days, which is a very 

 essential thing: for if it be dead, the Heron will not touch it. A strong line is 

 then to be prepared of silk and wire twisted together, and is to be about two yards 

 long •, tie this to the wire that holds the hook, and to the other end of it there is to 

 be tied a stone of about a pound weight; let three or four of these baits be sunk 

 in different shallow parts of the pond, and in a night or two's time the Heron will 

 not fail to be taken with one or other of them." 



