A SOLITARY HERON 321 



supplied with fish, but there he is, year in, year 

 out. He must be as content with a hermit's fare 

 as he is with a hermit's life. 



A third illustration I can give, as also within my 

 own knowledge. It is that of a bird which you 

 would least of all expect to submit to anything of 

 the kind, the easy-going, pleasure-loving, daintily- 

 stepping, heavily-feeding, arch-polygamist, the cock 

 pheasant. Like a prematurely worn-out king or 

 baron in the Middle Ages, this particular bird, a few 

 years ago, took it into his head to retire from the 

 world from his world, the jealousies, we will 

 suppose, the rivalries, the tittle-tattle of the inmates 

 of his harem and took up his abode in a remote 

 wood, where you might as well expect to find a hen 

 pheasant, as you might to find a woman, a cow, a 

 mare, a sow, or any animal of the female sex, among 

 the monasteries and monks of Mount Athos. His 

 solitude lasted only for a year. He fell to 

 the gun, among the rabbits who were, to all 

 appearance, his only companions. I am bound to 

 say that there were no signs of self-mortification 

 about him. He was fat and well-liking and in full 

 beauty of plumage ; and, if he died, in any sense, in 

 the odour of sanctity, it was in that of Friar Tuck, 

 rather than of St Anthony or St Benedict. 



