THE BITTERN. 67 



pears thus completely armed, not only for defensive but offen- 

 sive war, it flies at the approach of the sparrow-hawk. Of all 

 birds, however, this commits the greatest depredations in fresh 

 water ; and there is scarcely a fish, how large soever it may be, 

 that it will not strike at and wound, although unable to carry it 

 away ; but it subsists chiefly on the smaller fry. The heron 

 wades into the water as far as it can, and then carefully watches 

 for its victims, and will, it is said, destroy more fish in a week 

 than an otter will do in three months. 



" I have seen," says Willoughby, " a heron shot that had seven- 

 teen carps in his belly, all which he is able to digest in six or 

 seven hours. I have also seen," continues the same author, 

 " a carp of nine inches and a half long, taken out of the belly of 

 a heron." Several gentlemen who kept tame herons, to try 

 what quantity one of them could eat in a day, have put small 

 roach and dace into a tub, and they have found one heron eat 

 fifty in a day, one day with another. In this manner a single 

 heron will destroy fifteen thousand carp in a single half year. 



After this relation, we are not to wonder that the heron is 

 considered as so terrible a depredator in fish-ponds. It is now 

 generally destroyed as a nuisance, although it was once killed 

 for its flesh, which was formerly considered as a delicacy, and is 

 indeed very good food, although not at present held in any great 

 estimation. 



If we might be permitted to judge of the inscrutable designs 

 of the Creator in forming this insatiable bird, existence seems to 

 be given it for the purpose of counterbalancing by its voracity 

 the superabundant fecundity of some species of fishes, and pre- 

 venting their excessive multiplication. 



The heron is said to be a very long-lived bird. Mr. Keyster 

 asserts, that it lives to the age of sixty years ; and a recent in- 

 stance which occurred in Holland, confirms this account of its 

 longevity. A heron was taken in that country which had a 

 silver plate fastened to its leg, with an inscription, importing that 

 it had been struck by the Elector of Cologne's hawk, thirty-five 

 years before. 



THE BITTERN 



Is a bird of the heron kind, distinguished by the dismal hollow 

 sound which it emits, and which resembles the interrupted bel- 

 lowings of a bull, but is much louder, and heard at a greater 

 distance. It is indeed impossible that words should give an ad- 

 equate idea of the terrific solemnity of the bittern's note. The 

 bird, however, from which it proceeds, is less than the neron, and 

 neither so voracious nor destructive ; on the contrary, it is per- 

 fectly inoffensive, and instead of plundering the fish-ponds, lives 



