164 
A LUMINOUS BREAST. 
experienced among them. We put it down, then, as the marvellous 
working of an instinct — an instinct most admirably adapted to the 
circumstances of the necessary method made use of by the Heron to 
obtain the means of siibsistencc. 
But there is another cliaracteristic in the habits of the Heron's 
fishing that makes the fact still more particular and marked. On 
occasions when a river has inundated the marshes and plains of its 
basin, and the floods have subsided, leaving here and there some 
pools of water with fish in them, which have not been able to return 
with the volume of the rolling element, then it is that the Herons 
fish in sun and shade indiscriminately, as if they felt quite positive 
that the alarm caused by a shadow could be of no consequence, since 
it was no longer possible for their prey to escape them. The fish are 
in peril, and the Herons, seemingly aware of it, pounce upon them 
without taking that peculiar precaution which characterises their 
manner of doing it in other and ordinary circumstances. * Hov/,* 
says the writer in the 'British Naturalist,' ' the Herons find out these 
occasions it is difficult to say ; but we have seen several pairs come 
after a fiood to a river, which they never visited on any other 
occasion, and within many miles of which a Heronry, or even the nest 
of a single pair, was never observed.' 
Jesse, in his ^ Gleanings,' says : — ^ It has been supposed 
that a light is emitted by Herons from their breasts as they 
stand in the water of an evening, wading for fish. I should 
like to be assured of the accuracy of this supposition.' In 
answer to this, J. H. F., a contributor to the ' Mirror,' ob- 
serves : — ^ I have never met with any statement, either con- 
jectural or positively made, respecting such a circumstance, 
as regards the Heron ; but it is asserted by the best natu- 
ralists, that the breast of the Great American Bittern emits 
a powerful light, which has been considered of service to it 
in finding its prey at night time. Perhaps Mr. Jesse may 
have confounded this fact with the Heron.' None of the 
authorities whom we have consulted allude to this notion 
of a luminous breast as belonging to either bird, and we 
should take it to be one of the fables with which all works 
on natural history are rife ; it may be, that the silvery white 
and silky grey plumage of the Heron may cast a sort of 
sheen, or reflection as of faint light, on the water by which 
it stands; but we cannot think that this is sufiiciently strong 
to attract the fish to the spot, and so bring them within 
reach of its bill, or to enable the feathered fisher to discern 
its prey amid the surrounding gloom. 
