THE ANGLERS SOUVENIR. 



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memories of olden times when the heron was the 

 favourite quarry of the hawker. What an exciting 

 thing it must have been, to have seen the noble 

 falcon swoop upon the huge-winged heron, and to 

 see the bird turn over on its back, and with long, 

 sharp beak and talons fight savagely to the last. 



When the heron is on the wing its flight is appa- 

 rently slow. When you come upon it suddenly, it 

 has a very awkward and ugly way of taking wing, 

 stretching out its neck and hunching up its back 

 in an ungainly fashion. When it is fully on the 

 wing, its neck is stretched out before and its legs 

 behind ; and when it alights, it brings its legs 

 forward with a peculiar ' ' hoist. " Although its 

 flight seems slow, the beats of its wings are far 

 quicker than one would imagine, inasmuch as they 

 average 120 a minute. How quick, then, must be 

 the vibrations of the wings of smaller birds ! 



The food of the heron is principally fish, and to 

 catch these it stands in some shallow portion of the 

 river or lake, where the water is tolerably quiet, 

 and thus it watches until its prey passes within 

 reach, when out darts its long neck, and the pass- 

 ing trout or eel is caught between the long sharp 

 mandibles. If it be an eel, the heron has often 

 some difficulty in killing it, but it takes particular 

 care to do it effectually by nipping it in the back, 

 for a live eel wriggling about in its inside would 

 be far from pleasant. In default of fish diet, the 



heron will eat the young of water-fowl, mice, frogs, 



o 



