COMMON HERON. 141 
its extensive mud flats, either patiently waiting their 
prey, knee deep in the narrow creeks, or in the act of 
killing a freshly caught eel, by knocking it repeatedly 
on the ground. Sometimes, also, they may be seen 
grouped together in every conceivable attitude waiting 
for the fall of the tide, reminding one of Mrs. Blackburn’s 
clever sketch of herons on the shores of Locheil. Next 
to Breydon muds, Blakeney and Salthouse are perhaps 
their most favourite resorts by the sea, as I have never 
visited either place without seeing one or more even 
in July and August, and at Salthouse Mr. Dowell once 
saw a flock of fourteen. 
Tn such localities, at almost all seasons, they frequent 
the salt marshes, backwaters, and sandy flats, or, perched 
on the seaward side of a mussel-scalp or projecting 
spit of shingle, reluctantly leave their post, only when 
the sea washes the under parts of their plumage,* 
and this more particularly in winter if frozen out from 
their inland haunts, when, unfortunately, during severe 
weather a considerable number are killed; and though 
no longer esteemed as an article of food,+ find their way 
* In the “ Zoologist” for 1866 (p. 95) Mr. Blake-Knox states 
that from the New Bridge at Wexford, he observed a singular 
habit in the heron. ‘Some were lying in the water, the head and 
neck only emerging; there was about a foot of water on the Ooze.” 
+ In former times the heron ranked no less high as a delicacy 
for the table than as an object of sport, and whilst a heron tuft was 
a badge of honour, no royal banquet was complete without a bird 
or two occupying the chief place at the board. According to 
Folkard, in Edward I. reign, the price of a heron was higher than 
that of any other wild fowl, from sixteen to eighteen pence, the 
latter for the young birds. In the Lord North “ Accounts,” at the 
Kirtlinge festivities during Queen Elizabeth’s visit, “xxviij 
hearnshewes” were supplied at “iiij'i- xiijs- ij4-’; and in the 
Northumberland “ Household Book” it is ordered that ‘‘ Hearon- 
sewys be bought for my Lordes own Mees, so they be at xij4.a 
