628 AVES—HERON. 
THE HERON. 







Tue 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 
s 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 itaway. 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 stil! 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, Latu. The genus Ardea has the bill as long as, or longer, than the 
head, strong, straight, compressed, pointed ; upper mandible slightly suleated, ridge round- 
ed; nostrils lateral, placed almost at the base of the bill, 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. 
