INDEX. 289 



and voracious ; ever have lean and carrion bodies ; descrip- 

 tion of the common heron ; flies at the approach of the 

 sparrow-hawk ; commits the greatest devastations in fresh 

 waters ; a fish never so large he will strike at, though un- 

 able to carry it away ; one heron, says Willoughby, will de- 

 stroy fifteen thousand carp in half a-year ; usual attitude, 

 waiting for prey ; food in cold and stormy seasons ; manner 

 of fishing ; Willoughby's receipt for taking him ; their nests ; 

 never in flocks when they fish ; but making nests, they love 

 each other's society ; flesh of the young esteemed in France ; 

 method used to obtain them ; the young, once excluded, the 

 old incessantly provide them with an amazing quantity of 

 fish ; instance of it ; by Mr Keysler's account, this bird 

 may exceed sixty years ; recent instance of one taken in 

 Holland, with a silver plate to one leg, and an inscription, 

 that it had been struck by the elector of Cologne's hawks 

 thirty-five years before ; they contract a consumptive dis- 

 position, 315, &c. 



Heron-havrking, a favourite diversion among our ancestors ; 

 had laws enacted for the preservation of the species ; he 

 who destroyed their eggs was liable in a penalty of twenty 

 shillings for each offence, iv. 316. 



Herrera confirms the existence of giants, ii. 113. 



Herring, its description, v. 126. Of migrating fish, this and 

 the pilchard take the most adventurous voyages; places 

 where the herrings are in greatest abundance ; numerous 

 enemies met in their migrations ; in Chesapeake Bay, the 

 shoals so great as to cover the shores, and become a nui- 

 sance ; that body upon our coasts begins to appear off the 

 Shetland Isles in April ; forerunners of the grand shoal de- 

 scending in June, and announced by the gannet, gull, &c. ; 

 fishermen take two thousand barrels at a single draught ; 

 places of Europe where herrings are punctual in their visi- 

 tations ; doubts in every part of their migration ; first great 

 bank for herrings was along the Norway shore ; before 1584, 

 the number of ships from various parts of Europe, resorting 

 thither, exceeded some thousands ; quantity of herrings 

 then assembled there was such, that a spear stuck in the 

 water, as Olaus Magnus asserts, would stand on end ; soon 

 after that period they deserted the Norway shores, and 

 took up along the German coasts ; no cause assigned for 

 this seemingly capricious desertion ; their greatest colonies 

 now in the British Channel, and upon the Irish shores ; a 

 herring suffered to multiply, unmolested and undiminished, 

 for twenty years, would show a progeny greater in bulk 

 than ten such globes as that we live upon, 136. 



Hexagons, the most convenient figures in building ; cells of 

 bees are perfect hexagons, vi. 97. 



Hide of the elk, often known to turn a musket-ball, ii. 345. 

 VOL. VI. T 



