LITTLE BUSTARD. COMMON HERON. 131 



the great family of the ostrich and cassowary that has ever 

 visited our shores. 



Of the greatest rarity, but a single specimen has been ob- 

 tained in Ireland, which occurred in August, 1833, in the 

 county of Wicklow ; it was in company with another of the 

 same species, and both birds were associated with golden 

 plover. The attention of the gentleman who obtained it was 

 attracted in consequence of its singular cry or call-note. 



Habitat Northern Africa. 



ORDER IV. GRALLATOKES. (WADING BIRDS). 

 FAMILY XXVIII. ARDEAD^E (HERONS). 



GENUS LXIV. ARDEA (HERON). 



SPECIES 122. THE COMMON HERON. 



Ardea cinerea. Linn. 



Heron cendre. Temm. 



Crane. Coreisk. 



WE commence the great and diversive order of the waders 

 with the most perfect type of the family, the common heron, 

 a species possessing every attribute that attracts notice and 

 admiration, and at the same time occurring in such numbers 

 that it is well known to the majority of observers. 



Attractive in its habits, either when standing patiently by 

 some lone mountain lough, or wheeling past us on its ample 

 wing from the shadow of some ancestral wood, we at all times 

 associate the heron and his more noble pursuer, the falcon, 

 with the palmy old days of chivalry, when the laws of a feudal 

 age were extended to this u noble quarry" and " bird of the 

 great night." 



Strictly preserved by statutes which each succeeding king 

 made more severe, the heron was selected as the most noble 

 of those birds which, from their size and power of flight, were 

 the only desirable quarry worthy of being struck down by the 

 belled and tasselled falcon. 



From the general moist character of our island, and its 

 numerous mountain loughs and solitary streams, the heron 

 has considerably increased and multiplied. 



K2 



