30 ORNITHOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 



while the poor heron, far from making any re- 

 sistance, screamed with terror, and only occasion- 

 ally arrested his flight to throw himself into an 

 attitude of apparent pain and distress. Perhaps 

 you will regret that I have recorded this little 

 incident, as it may induce you to form rather 

 a low estimate of the moral qualities of a bird 

 whose physical organization would certainly ap- 

 pear calculated to enable him to resist such attacks 

 effectually. 



I have long felt satisfied that the injury which 

 herons commit on fish-ponds is far less than is 

 generally imagined : indeed, the depredations of 

 all birds which can by any possibility be sup- 

 posed to interfere with the comforts or luxuries of 

 man, from the lordly eagle to the republican spar- 

 row, a?e greatly exaggerated, and a short-sighted 

 proscription is the result. Nay, those very habits 

 which should entitle some species to his especial 

 protection, are frequently, either from gross ig- 

 norance, or a wilful distortion of reasoning, con- 

 verted into a capital charge against them, which 

 entails unmerited persecution and the gradual 

 diminution of the race. Even the heron is not 

 such an unmitigated poacher as many persons 

 are inclined to believe ; I have had good oppor- 

 tunities of observing him here, and still better in 

 Ireland, and I have rarely known him to take a fish 



