HERON. 1 89 



and every where it appears to be a favourite with the 

 common people. There is a black species, the modern 

 ibis of Egypt, and another, found in America, which differs 

 little from the common stork. 



THE HERON. 



This well-known bird is remarkably light in proportion 

 to its bulk ; its body being extremely slender, and all its 

 members of a corresponding structure. The male has a 

 loose pendant crest of long black waving feathers, which 

 the female is without. Indeed, the colour and plumage 

 of the two sexes vary so much, that many naturalists have 

 been led to consider them as different species. 



Though .the general appearance of the heron indicates 

 its fitness for a state of warfare, it is nevertheless a very 

 timorous bird ; except when committing its devastations on 

 fishes, which it attacks and devours without mercy. It is 

 a general robber of ponds and lakes ; and frequently, with 

 instinctive foresight, builds its nests in places where the 

 stock of fish is artificially kept up, in order to gain a better 

 opportunity for plunder. 



The heron wades into the water as far as possible, and 

 there patiently waits the approach of a shoal of fish, which 

 no sooner appear, than it darts on its victims with almost 

 inevitable aim : it will, in fact, destroy more fishes in a week 

 than perhaps any other bird could in a month. *'! have 

 seen a heron," says a respectable writer, " which had 

 been shot, that had seventeen carps in its belly at once, 

 which he will digest in seven or eight hours, and then fall 

 to fishing again." Indeed, the voraciousness of this bird 

 is extreme : and he is, of course, proscribed in most gen- 

 tlemen's parks, and wherever there is water stocked with 

 fibb. 



The flesh of the heron was formerly much esteemed in 

 England ; where now, such is the variation of tastes, this 

 bird is almost every where killed as a common nuisance.; 

 In France, however, the young ones are still held in high 

 estimation, and consequently heronries are encouraged. 



