30 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



ously, while the poor heron, far from making any 

 resistance, screamed with terror, and only occa- 

 sionally arrested his flight to throw himself into 

 an attitude of apparent pain and distress. Per- 

 haps you will regret that I have recorded this lit- 

 tle 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 it 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, are greatly exaggerated, and a short-sighted 

 proscription is the result. Nay, those very ope- 

 rations which should entitle some species to his 

 especial protection, are frequently, either from 

 gross ignorance, or a wilful distortion of reason- 

 ing, converted into a capital charge against them, 

 which entails unmerited persecution and the gra- 

 dual 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 take a fish 



