628 



AVES — HERON. 



THE HERON. 1 



The common heron is remarkably light in proportion to its bulk, scarcely 

 weighing three pounds and a half, yet it expands a breadth of wing which 

 is five feet from tip to tip. Its bill is very long, being five inches from the 

 point to the base ; its claws are long, sharp, and the middlemost toothed like 

 a saw. Yet, thus armed as it appears for war, it is indolent and cowardly, 

 and flies even at the approach of a sparrow-hawk. When driven to ex- 

 tremity, however, it shakes off" its timidity, and displays both courage and 

 skill. When its antagonist succeeds in rising above it, which is not easily 

 done, the heron doubles his neck backward under his wing, and turns his 

 bill upward, like a bayonet. In this manner, he sometimes contrives to 

 transfix even the powerful sea eagle. 



Of all birds, this commits the greatest devastation in fresh water ; and 

 there is scarcely a fish, though ever so large, that he will not strike at and 

 wound, though unable to carry it away. But the smaller fry are his chief 

 subsistence ; these, pursued by their larger fellows of the deep, are obliged 

 to take refuge in shallow waters, where they find the heron a still more for- 

 midable enemy. His method is to wade as far as he can go into the water, 

 and there patiently wait the approach of his prey, which, when it comes 



1 Ardea cinerea, Lath. The genus Ardea has the bill as lona: as, or longer, than the 

 head, strong, straight, compressed, pointed ; upper mandible slightly sulcated, ridge round- 

 ed ; nostrils lateral, placed almost at the base of the hill, longitudinally cleft in a groove, 

 and half closed by a membrane ; orbits and lores naked ; legs long and slender, with a 

 naked space above the knee ; the middle toe connected with the outer by a short mem- 

 brane ; claws long, compressed, that of the middle toe dentated interiorly. 



