ITS A HISTORY OF 



in the deep, as they find it to be the warmest situation. Frogs and 

 lizards also seldom venture from their lurking places, and the heron 

 is obliged to support himself upon his long habits of patience, and 

 even to take up with the weeds that grow upon the water. At those 

 times he contracts a consumptive disposition, which succeeding plenty 

 is not able to remove ; so that the meagre glutton spends his time be- 

 tween want and riot, and feels alternately the extremes of famine and 

 excess. Hence, notwithstanding the care with which he takes his 

 prey, and the amazing quantity he devours, the heron is always lean 

 and emaciated ; and though his crop be usually found full, yet his 

 flesh is scarce sufficient to cover the bones. 



The heron usually takes his prey by wading into the water, yet it 

 must not be supposed that he does not also take it upon the wing. In 

 fact, much of his fishing is performed in this manner ; but he never 

 hovers over deep waters, as there his prey is enabled to escape him 

 by sinking to the bottom. In shallow places he darts with more 

 certainty ; for though the fish at sight of its enemy instantly descends, 

 yet the heron, with his long bill and legs, instantly pins it to the bot- 

 tom, and thus seizes it securely. In this manner, after having been 

 seen with his long neck for above a minute under water, he rises up- 

 on the wing, with a trout or an eel struggling in his bill to get free 

 The greedy bird, however, flies to the shore, scarce gives it time to 

 expire, but swallows it whole, and then returns to fishing as before. 



As this bird does incredible mischief to ponds newly stocked, Wil- 

 loughby has given a receipt for taking them. " Having found his 

 haunt, get three or four small roach or dace, and having provided a 

 strong hook with a wire to it, this is drawn just withinside the skin 

 of the fish, beginning withoutside the gills, and running it to the tail, 

 by which the fish will not be killed, but continue for five or six days 

 alive. Then having a strong line made of silk and wire, about two 

 yards and a half long, it is tied to a stone at one end, the fish with 

 the hook being suffered to swim about at the other. This being 

 properly disposed in shallow water, the heron will seize upon the fish 

 to its own destruction. From this method we may learn, that the 

 fish must be alive, otherwise the heron will not touch them, and that the 

 bird, as well as all those that feed upon fish, must be its own cater- 

 er ; for they will not prey upon such as die naturally", or are killed by 

 others before them." 



Though this bird lives chiefly among pools and marshes, yet its 

 nest is built on the tops of the highest trees, and sometimes on cliffs; 

 hanging over the sea. They are never in flocks when they fish, com- 

 mitting their depredations in solitude and silence; but in making 

 their nests they love each other's society, and they are seen, like 

 rooks, building in company with flocks of their kind. Their nests 

 are made of sticks, and lined with wool, and the female lays four 

 large eggs of a pale green colour. The observable indolence of their 

 nature, however, is not less seen in their nestling than in their ha- 

 bits of depredation. Nothing is more certain, and I have seen it a 

 Hundred times, than that they will not be at the trouble of building a 

 nest when they can get one made by the rook, or deserted by the 

 owl, already provided for them. This they usually enlarge and hue 



