GREAT HERON. 
53 
of nympliae usually called splatterdocks, so abundant along our 
fresh water ponds and rivers. 
The heron has great powers of wing, flying sometimes very 
high, and to a great distance ; his neck doubled, his head 
drawn in, and his long legs stretched out in a right line behind 
him, appearing like a tail, and, probably, serving the same 
rudder-like office. When he leaves the sea-coast, and traces, 
on wing, the courses of the creeks or rivers upwards, he is said 
to prognosticate rain ; when downwards, dry weather. He is 
most jealously vigilant and watchful of man, so that those who 
wish to succeed in shooting the heron, must approach him en- 
tirely unseen, and by stratagem. The same inducements, 
however, for his destruction, do not prevail here as in Europe. 
Our sea-shores and rivers are free to all for the amusement of 
fishing. Luxury has not yet constructed her thousands of fish 
ponds, and surrounded them with steel traps, spring guns, and 
heron snares.* In our vast fens, 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 
* The heron,” says an English writer, “ is a very great devourer of fish, 
and does more mischief in a pond than an otter. People who have kept herons, 
have had the curiosity to number the fish they feed them with into a tub of 
Water, and counting them again afterwards, it has been found that they will eat 
up fifty moderate dace and roaches in a day. It has been found, that in carp 
ponds visited by this bird, one heron will eat up a thousand store carp in a year ; 
and will hunt them so close, as to let very few escape. The readiest method of 
destroying this mischievous bird, is by fishing for him in the manner of pike, 
with a baited hook. 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 let- 
ting 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 to- 
gether, 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.” 
