Cuass Il. COMMON HERON. 
thicker than what is called gold-beater’s skin. 
It must be capable of bearing a long abstinence, 
as its feod, which is fish and frogs, cannot be 
readily got at all times. It commits great de- 
vastation in our ponds ; being unprovided with 
webs to swim, nature has furnished it with 
very long legs to wade after its prey. It perches 
and builds on trees, and sometimes in high cliffs 
over the sea, commonly in company with many 
others, like rooks. At Cressi Hall near Gosber- 
ton in Lincolnshire, 1 have counted above eighty 
nests in one tree. It makes its nest of sticks, 
lines it with wool; and lays five or six large 
eggs of a pale green color. During incubation, 
the male passes much of its time perched by 
the female. They desert their nests during 
winter, excepting in February, when they re- 
sort to repair them. It was formerly in this 
country a bird of game, heron-hawking being so — 
favourite a diversion of our ancestors, that laws 
were enacted for the preservation of the species, 
and the person who destroyed their eggs was 
liable to a penalty of twenty shillings, for each 
offence. Not to know the Hawk from the He- 
ronshaw was an old proverb”, taken originally 
* In after times this proverb was absurdly corrupted to, He 
does not know a hawk from a hand-saw. 
il 
