GREAT HERON. 



449 



the bald eagle attack and tease the great heron ; but whether 

 for sport, or to make him disgorge his fish, I am uncertain. 



The common heron of Europe (Ardea major) very much 

 resembles the present, which might, as usual, have probably 

 been ranked as the original stock, of which the present was a 

 mere degenerated species, were it not that the American is 

 greatly superior in size and weight to the European species ; 

 the former measuring four feet four inches, and weighing 

 upwards of seven pounds ; the latter, three feet three inches, 

 and rarely weighing more than four pounds. Yet, with the 

 exception of size, and the rust-coloured thighs of the present, 

 they are extremely alike. The common heron of Europe, 

 however, is not an inhabitant of the United States. 



The great heron does not receive his full plumage during 

 the first season, nor until the summer of the second. In the 

 first season, the young birds are entirely destitute of the white 

 plumage of the crown, and the long pointed feathers of the 

 back, shoulders, and breast. In this dress I have frequently 

 shot them in autumn ; but in the third year, both males and 

 females have assumed their complete dress, and, contrary to 

 all the European accounts which I have met with, both are 

 then so nearly alike in colour and markings as scarcely to be 

 distinguished from each other, both having the long flowing 

 crest, and all the ornamental white pointed plumage of the 

 back and breast. Indeed, this sameness in the plumage of 

 the males and females, when arrived at their perfect state, is a 

 characteristic of the whole of the genus with which I am ac- 

 quainted. Whether it be different with those of Europe, or 



and letting it run just under the skin to the tail ; the fish will live in 

 this manner for five or six clays, which is a very essential thing ; for if 

 it be dead, the heron will riot touch it. A strong line is then to be pre- 

 pared of silk and wire twisted together, and is to be about two yards 

 long ; tie this to the wire that holds the hook, and to the other end of 

 it there is to be tied a stone of about a pound weight ; let three or four 

 of these baits be sunk in different shallow parts of the pond, and, in a 

 night or two's time, the heron will not fail to be taken with one or other 

 of them." 



VOL. II. 2 F 



