FROZEN HERONS. 
165 
iioned by naturalists, wbo maintain that there is a 
sufficiency of internal warmth in a bird's foot, to 
thaw any moisture which might produce the effect 
above mentioned ; but when we consider the power 
of sudden frosts, and the comparatively small circu- 
lation of blood in a bird's claw, we see no reason to 
doubt the fact, which is in a great degree confirmed 
by some other instances of the effect of frost, of an 
equal, if not more extraordinary nature. Thus, a 
writer who kept a journal in 1658, in speaking of 
the winter of that year, alludes to it as the severest 
ever known in England, and, amongst other things, 
adds, that Crows were taken with their feet frozen 
to their prey*. In Scotland, also, during a severe 
frost, a Heron was found struggling on the ice ; it 
seems the foot on which it had been standing, had 
been during the night completely frozen up ; pro- 
bably when first it settled on the previous evening, 
the surface was in a fluid state, but a severe frost 
setting in, the foot was soon incrusted with ice, and 
the bird fettered to the spot. Again, in one of 
Captain Sir Edward Parry's Northern Expeditions, 
the hand of a marine was so dreadfully frost-bitten, 
that it was found necessary to amputate some of 
the fingers ; previously to which, by way of restoring 
circulation gradually to the parts which had not 
been frost-bitten, the man's hand was dipped in cold 
water, when to the great surprise of the medical 
attendants, the water was seen to congeal round the 
frozen joints, for a considerable length of time after 
its immersion. In another of his expeditions, it 
was observed, that the Ravens which were seen on 
* Evelyn’s Memoirs. 
