GREAT HERON. 
297 
meadows and sea marshes, this stately bird roams at pleasure, feasting 
on the never-failing magazines of frogs, fish, seeds and insects with 
which they abound, and of which he probably considers himself the 
sole lord and proprietor. I have several times seen 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-colored thighs of the present, they arc 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 color and markings, as scarcely to be distin- 
guished from e'ach 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 acquainted. Whether it be different with those of Europe, 
or that the young and imperfect birds have been hitherto mistaken for 
females I will not pretend to say, though I think the latter conjecture 
highly probable, as the Night Raven (Ardea nycticorax) has been known 
for several centuries, and yet in all their accounts the sameness of the 
colors and plumage of the male and female of that bird is nowhere men- 
When the haunt of the Heron is found out, three or four small roach, or dace, are 
to be procured, and each of them is to be baited on a wire, with a strong hook at 
the end, entering the wire just at the gills, and letting it run just under the skin 
to the tail; the fish will live in this manner for five or six days, which is a very- 
essential thing: for if it be dead, the Heron will not touch it. A strong line is 
then to be prepared 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." 
