296 Wild Life in a Southern County 



in mortal fright, but presently gets half way up to the 

 clouds and sails away in calm security. His neck then 

 seems to drop down in a bend, the head being brought 

 back as he settles to his flight, so that the country people 

 say the heron often carries a snake. 



The mark he offers to shot is much less than would be 

 supposed ; he is all length and no breadth ; the body is 

 very much smaller than it looks. But if you can stalk him 

 in the brook till within thirty or forty yards, and can draw 

 4 a bead ' on his head as he lifts it up every now and then 

 to glance over the banks, then you have him easily; a 

 very small knock in the head being sufficient to stop him. 



The tenacity of life exhibited by the heron is something 

 wonderful : though shot in the head, and hung up as dead, 

 a heron will sometimes raise his neck several hours after- 

 wards. To wring the neck is impossible it is like leather 

 or a strong spiral spring : you cannot break it, so that the 

 only way to put the creature out of pain is to cut the 

 artery ; and even then there are signs of muscular con- 

 traction for some time. A labourer once asked me for a 

 heron that I had shot; I gave it to him, and he cooked it. 

 He said he boiled it eight hours, and that it was not 

 so very fishy ! But even he could not manage the neck 

 part. 



This bird must have a wonderful power of sight to 

 catch its prey at night, and out of some depth of water. 

 In severe winter weather, when the lake is frozen, herons 

 evidently suffer much. Most of them leave, probably for 

 the rivers which do not freeze till the last ; but one or two 

 linger about the water-meadows till they seem to despair 

 of catching anything, and will alight in the centre of a 

 large pasture field where there is no water, and stand there 

 for hours disconsolate. I suspect that the herons in winter- 



