FROZEN HERONS. 169 



tioned by naturalists, who maintain that there is a 

 sufficiency of internal warmth in a bird's foot, to 

 thaw any moisture which might produce the effect 

 above mentioned; but when we consider the power 

 of sudden frosts, and the comparatively small circu- 

 lation of blood in a bird's claw, we see no reason to 

 doubt the fact, which is in a great degree confirmed 

 by some other instances of the effect of frost, of an 

 equal, if not more extraordinary nature. Thus, a 

 writer who kept a journal in 1658, in speaking of 

 the winter of that year, alludes to it as the severest 

 ever known in England, and, amongst other things, 

 adds, that Crows were taken with their feet frozen 

 to their prey'"'. In Scotland, also, during a severe 

 frost, a Heron was found struggling on the ice; it 

 seems the foot on which it had been standing, had 

 been during the night completely frozen up; pro- 

 bably when first it settled on the previous evening, 

 the surface was in a fluid state, but a severe frost 

 setting in, the foot was soon encrusted with ice, and 



O 7 7 



the bird fettered to the spot. Again, in one of 

 Captain Sir Edward Parry's Northern Expeditions, 

 the hand of a marine was so dreadfully frost-bitten, 

 that it was found necessary to amputate some of 

 the fingers; previously to which, by way of restoring 

 circulation gradually to the parts which had not 

 been frost-bitten, the man's hand was dipped in cold 

 water, when to the great surprise of the medical 

 attendants, the water was seen to congeal round the 

 frozen joints for a considerable length of time after 

 its immersion. In another of his expeditions, it 

 was observed, that the Ravens which were seen on 



* Evelyn 's Memoirs. 



