Buffon draws largely upon his imagination for a picture of wretchedness, and then makes the heron a personification of it, with as much foundation as characterises most of his fancies of this description. When on its fishing station, the bird stands immoveable as a stump, with the neck bent and between the shoulders, watching for the passing fish, which it unerringly spears with its sharp bill. But besides fish and reptiles, such as frogs, newts, &c., mice, young water-rats, and even young water-fowl, are occasionally devoured by it. Mr. Selby, in his excellent 'Illustrations of British gives, on the authority of Mr. Neill, of Canonmills, near Edinburgh, two interesting anecdotes in illustration of the habits of this bird in a state of half-domestication. "The Common Heron (a male)," says Mr. Neill, " which was winged on Coldingham Muir in autumn, 1821, when a young bird, and given to me in 1822 by Mr. John Wilson, of the College, has since resided in my garden at Canonmills, and is now so tame that he often follows me, expecting a piece of cheese, which he relishes. Four years ago Mr. Allan, of Lauriston, sent me a young female which had been taken during a severe storm. She soon asso ciated with the older bird. In summer, 1828, she laid three or four eggs (I am not sure which) on the top of a wall next to the mill-pond. She than laid one or two on the flower-border below the wall, and close by the box-edging : here some eggs were broken by the birds suddenly starting off when alarmed by strangers walking in the garden. We supplied their place by some bantam eggs, and only one heron egg at last remained. Alas ! the poor hen, having strayed to the margin of the mill-pond, was shot by some thoughtless young man with a fowling-piece. The cock continued to sit for several entire days after the death of the hen, but at last tired. Ile used to it when she went .off for food. During the whole time of pairing the cock was very bold, raising his feathers and snapping his bill whenever any one approached." Mr. Neil further adds a fact, showing that the bird can swim upon occasion. "A large old willow-tree," writes Mr. Neill in continuation, "had fallen down into the pond, and at the extremity, which is partly sunk in the sludge, and continues to vegetate, water-hens breed. The old cock heron swims out to the nest, and takes the young, if he can. He has to swim 10 or 12 feet, where the water is between 2 and 3 feet deep. His motion through the water is slow, but his carriage stately. I have seen him fell a rat by one blow on the back of the head, when the rat was munching at his dish of fish." Geographical Distribution.—Very extensive, and embracing the greater part of the Old World. (Selby.) It is permanent in England. Dr. Latham says, "In England and tho milder climates tide species of heron is stationary, migratory in the colder, according to the season ; is rarely seen far north. Inhabits Africa and Asia in general,
the Cape of Good Hope, Calcutta, and other parts of India, and is found in America from Carolina to New York." With regard to the American locality, Dr. Latham appears to have taken the Great Heron (Ardea Herodias, Linnmus), for the Common Heron, which last is not mentioned by any of the ornithologists who have made the birds of America their study, as an inhabitant of the Now World. Dr. Von Siebold mentions this our European species among the birds which he observed in Japan.
to ifea—In days of old, when the Heron was a principal feature in the noble sport of hawking, and when the destruction of its eggs was visited with a penalty of twenty shillings, it seems to have held as high a place at the tables of the great as it did in the field. Thus, at the ' intronazation ' of George Nevill, archbishop of York, in the reign of Edward IV., we find in the bill of fare 400 Heronshawta and 200 Feasauntsa (pheasants); and it seems, at one period, to have been valued as a dish at the same price as the latter bird, for from the prices in the household-book of the fifth earl of Northumberland, wo find Hearonsewys (herons) marked at twelve pence, and pheasants at the same rate to a penny. At a marriage-feast in Henry VIII.'s time, we find Heronsews noted at the same price, and at another marriage-feast in the same year two dozen Ileron.sues marked at twenty-four shillings. In the first of these records uo mention is made of pheasants, but in the second they appear at that earlier time to have been rather more highly valued than herons, for eighteen pheasants are priced at twenty-four shillings, the amount placed against the two dozen herons. And in the charges of Sir John revile of Cheto (the knight in whose family the marriages above alluded to took place), at Lammas assizes, in the 20th year of the reign of king Henry VIII., the pheasants appear to have cost some what more than the lleronsews, thirty of which are priced at thirty shillings, while twelve pheasants cost twenty shillings. The heron plume, made up of the fine large depending feathers, especially those above the wings, was highly valued.
In the present day the bird seems to have sunk into comparative insignificance. Mr. Selby however considers that " the low estimation in which the flesh of the Heron is now held would seem to be in a great degree the effect of prejudice, or the fashion of taste, as under proper treatment and good cookery the Heron, when fat and in fine condition, is but little inferior to some of our most approved wild-fowl." The well-known adage expressive of ignorance, "He does not know a hawk from a hand-saw," is a corruption of "He does not know a hawk from a heronshaw." Temminck'e second section of Herons consists of the Bitterns, including the Night Herons. [BITTERN; NYCTICoRS.x.]