70 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 30, 1860. 
dean, smooth bosom, the tail well turned below the spar or 
percb. 
Clean buff and clear yellow are the colours of the highest- 
clas» birds. The Piebald are merely the same birds bred with 
varegated colours, or rather being crossed with the Green 
Caiary. The produce are generally green mixed with black and 
yelow, and it is generally sought to haye them evenly marked, 
soas to have the wings green, and the body yellow, and so forth. 
Tie best marked bird in the estimation of the Judge tops the 
lit; but this fancy has no standard ,, as it is in its infancy as yet; 
lut lately it has arisen, I believe, from the difficulty there is found 
o produce clear birds, and this (1859), is the first Show that a 
oird was allowed to compete which had a black mark on the bill 
or legs.” 
In a later letter Mr. Rutliven remarks :—“ Our Scotch Fancy 
Canaries, I may say, average about five inches and a half in 
length, nervous, light made, and active. We have some good 
birds six inches and a half, and our endeavour is to get them as 
long as we can, and as much circled. Our birds with their active 
motion whip the tail round with a jerk which is liked. A good 
specimen is not easily got.” 
He further writes :—“ Our Scotch fanciers prefer the Hooped 
Belgian, not because it is the proper shape, but because they 
think it will improve then’ Scotch breed by introducing them as 
a cross to get length and narrowness. 
“ They give length and lightness, but it is difficult to get quit 
of the peak and frill in the bosom, which is a bad fault in our 
bird. Then, again, they generally incline to give stiffness to the 
tail, which is another drawback.” 
In conclusion I may remark, that on the whole the introduc¬ 
tion of the Belgian cross seem likely to spoil the originality of 
the Scotch Fancy breed, and fanciers will do well to pause ere 
they destroy the unique and peculiar Scotch Fancy Canary, which 
seems so different to anything we have south of the Tweed. 
11th Variety.—The Calais Fancy. 
I have noticed among the Canary fanciers of Calais, a breed of 
Canaries that seemed peculiar to that town. They were exceedingly 
delicate, and the fanciers bred them very early in the season— 
viz., in January and February. They were jonque in colour, 
very slight and straight in build, and of tolerable length. So 
slim and slight were they, that it was a saying among the fanciers, 
that the best birds looked as if they had been drawn through a 
lady’s wedding ring, and such were highly prized.— B. P. Brent. 
{To he continued .) 
THE HERON. 
In “ olden times ” the heron afforded excellent sport for the 
falconer, and was considered a suitable dish for Royalty; but in 
these times he is held a nuisance, for he may be seen transfixed 
at the end of a barn along with hawks and other vermin which 
prey upon game. Owing to that and other faults laid to his 
charge, heronries are much let down, but some small ones still 
exist, and it is really interesting to visit one in May and June— 
the breeding season. This is the only time herons are seen in 
flocks, and they build their rude nests of sticks on the top of 
lofty trees. The hen lays four or five bluish eggs, about the size 
of those of ducks. Like rooks, herons have great attachment 
for their favourite trees ; indeed so much so, that Montague speaks 
of only one tree being left in a lierony, on a small island in the 
north of Scotland, on which there was not room for the whole 
company, and some of them built round it on the ground. I 
have known instances of many of them being shot before they 
would leave their old haunts. The heronries were broken up 
upon the score that the “ long necks ” devoured both game and 
fishes, and also that their dung injured the trees. This latter 
charge seems groundless, at least the same may be said of rooks, 
and herons seldom or never frequent game preserves ; but, of 
course, they are notorious robbers of fish in shallow rivers and 
ponds. I should observe, however, that during the breeding 
time their demand for food is so great that herons draw their 
chief supplies from large meres , as they are called in Norfolk, 
sometimes sixteen miles off. This distance may seem great, but 
a heron is of light weight, not above three pounds, and when on 
the wing with legs extended beyond his tail as a rudder, he soon 
returns with a gullet full of fishes. Perhaps the sixteen carp which 
Willoughby found in a heron’s maw was one of those loads. After 
the young can shift for themselves, which is not till a consider¬ 
able time, the whole party breaks up, perhaps, in pairs, and 
frequent sequestered spots near lakes and rivers to enable them 
to obtain their finny prey. 
Although the heron is very ravenous he can fast a long time, 
and when hard pressed for food he will swallow rats, mice, and 
small birds, after giving them a good soaking in water in order 
to make them slip better down his wide throat. A friend of 
mine during a severe winter shot a heron near an unfrozen 
spring, and took a snipe out of his stomach. The heron has 
great power of digesting such diet, but he casts up felt and 
feathers in pellets of about the size of walnuts, in a similar way 
as the kingfisher does the bones of his smaller prey. It was 
seeing feathers in such balls that led Mr. Rayner, of Uxbridge, 
to discover that his tame heron had swallowed his young king-, 
fishers. The loss was grievous, but as they were missed by only 
one at a time, they afforded, singly, but a small mouthful for the 
heron. 
I possess one that swallows middle-sized rats, blackbirds, &c. 
But his jaw's are not equal to those of a blackheaded gull which 
I once had, which stole some kittens from my cat; and I was 
surprised to see poor puss mewing after Mr. Gull, who was 
waving his head about, and with nothing of the kitten to be seen 
except its tail dangling from his mouth. As the heron is very 
shy, and his habits in a wild state are not well known, there are 
some false notions respecting him. One is that he has only one 
gut, and that live eels pass through his body and are again 
gobbled up. This seems to be only a silly notion, and may have 
arisen from herons dropping eels when disturbed. Nor does 
there appear any ground for the common belief that the scent of 
herons’ feet draws or attracts eels from their holes in the mud. 
Mudie, who was a very acute observer, relates some very inter¬ 
esting traits of the heron. One is, that when he is hotly pressed 
either by a sea-eagle or a hawk in the air, he cunningly doubles 
his neck backwards under his wing, and turns his spear-like bill 
upwards near the middle of his hody, all the while keeping a 
steady eye on his enemy above, who descends, and is transGxed 
before he can strike with his talons. This may be true, for a 
heron has a sure and deadly aim with his closed beak of nearly 
six inches in length. For instance : the late Dr. Neil, of Edin¬ 
burgh, who spent his long life in the pursuit of horticulture and 
zoology, mentions, in his interesting paper on his tame herons, 
that he saw one of them kill a rat by one stroke on the head while 
it was stealing his food. Old herons are very shy, and cannot 
bear confinement. Some assert that they refuse food and die; 
but young ones are easily domesticated. Dr. Neil’s pair built 
two nests ; but owing to unfortunate accidents the eggs were 
broken. He states that the herons cleared his garden of snails, 
frogs, and toad3: I suspect that they only killed the last-men¬ 
tioned. This reminds me of having once lost a heron very shortly 
after I gave him a large toad, which he at first refused ; but being 
very hungry, he afterwards swallowed it. In less than half an 
hour my heron was dead, and I found the toad close by nearly 
settled. On close inspection I found a milky fluid oozing through 
the skin of the toad’s back. I tried another heron with a smaller 
toad; and he quickly sickened, and cast up the reptile dead with 
other contents of his stomach. 
I have already said that young herons are easily tamed. The 
one I have follows me about, and thrusts his long neck into 
waterpots expecting to find a fish. At other times he goes down 
on his knees, or haunches, with his head down to his shoulders. 
—J. WlGHTON. 
DARK-COLOURED LIGURIAN BEES. 
I have tw’o hives of Ligurian bees. The queens I had through 
Messrs. Neighbour; but the bees of one hive seem to be a 
brighter yellow colour than the hive of bees, some of which I 
enclose alive, as when dead they soon lose their colour. Will 
you be so good qs to say if these are Ligurians ? This hive I had 
at the moors. Would this make them darker than those I kept 
at home ?—J. W. W. 
[Of the three bees enclosed, two reached us alive. They are 
dark Ligurians, possibly hybrids, but on this point we are unable 
to decide. It will be remembered that the same thing occurred 
to “ A Devonshire Bee-keeper” last year. Two out of his 
four Italian queens produced dark-coloured Ligurians ; and he 
was so impressed with the belief that they were hybrids, that h* 
would not breed from them. A removal to the moors has no 
influence on the colour of either Ligurian or common bees.] 
