Herons and Bitterns 



this stately bird, full of appreciation of its beauty and the mystery 

 of the marsh. Surely no one enjoyed 



" The cry of the herons winging their way 



O'er the poet's house in the elmwood thickets " 



more than Lowell himself. 



" Sing him the song of the green morass, 



And the tides that water the reeds and rushes ; 



Sing of the air and the wild delight 



Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you. 



The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight 



Through the drift of the floating mists that infold you.'' 



Hern, an obsolete form of heron, was perhaps last used by 

 Tennyson when he wrote of "The Brook" that comes "from 

 the haunts of coot and hern." The old adage, "not to know a 

 hawk from a handsaw," lacks its meaning if we do not recall 

 how heronsewe, a heron (not heronshaw, as is often writ- 

 ten), was corrupted in England long ago, when hawking was a 

 favorite sport there, into hernser, in turn corrupted into handsaw. 

 Tradition says that the soul of Herodias became incarnate in the 

 heron, the fkvorite bird of Herod, but in that case the common 

 heron of Europe {Ardea cinerea of Linnaeus) 'should bear her 

 hated name, and not this distinctly American species. 



Patience, an easy virtue of the tropics, from whence the 

 great blue heron comes, characterizes its habits when we observe 

 them at the north. Standing motionless in shallow water, the 

 Sphinx-like bird waits silently, solemnly, hour after hour, for 

 fish, frogs, small reptiles, and large insects to come within 

 range; then, striking suddenly with its strong, sharp bill, it snaps 

 up its victim or impales it, gives it a knock or two to kill it if 

 the thrust has not been sufficient, tosses it in the air if the prey 

 is a fish, and, in order to avoid the scratching fins, swallows 

 it head downward. Hunters pretend to excuse their wanton 

 slaughter by saying herons eat too many fish ; but possibly these 

 were created as much for the herons' good as our own, and no 

 thanks are offered for the reptiles and mice they destroy. 



Wild, shy, solitary, and suspicious birds, it is next to im- 

 possible to approach them, even after one has penetrated to the 

 forbidding retreats where they hide. Near sunset is the hour 



162 



