TOES connected as far as the first joint by a strong membrane. Ardea Pella five cinerea. Gefner av. 211. T Cimbris Skid-Heire Skredheire. Brun- Le Heron. Briffon av. v. 292. tab. 34. HIS bird is remarkably light in proportion to its bulk, fcarce weighing three pounds and a half: the length is three feet two inches; the breadth five feet four inches. The body is very finall, and always lean; and the fkin scarce thicker than what is called gold-beater's skin. It must be capable of bearing a long abftinence, as its food, which is fish and 173. COM MON. frogs, cannot be readily got at all times. It commits great devaftation in our ponds; but being unprovided with webs to swim, nature has furnished it with very long legs to wade after its prey. It perches and builds in trees, and fometimes in high cliffs over the fea, commonly in company with many others, like rooks. At Creffi Hall near Goßberton in Lincolnshire I have counted above eighty nefts in one tree. It makes its neft of sticks, lines it with wool; and lays five or fix large eggs of a pale green color. During incubation, the male paffes much of its time perched by the female. They defert their nefts during winter, excepting in February, when they refort to repair them. It was formerly in this country a bird of game, heron-hawking being fo favourite a diverfion of our anceftors, that laws were enacted for the prefervation of the fpecies, and the person who destroyed their eggs was liable to a penalty of twenty fhillings, for each offence. Not to know the Hawk from the Heronfhaw was an old proverb*, taken originally from this diverfion; but in courfe of time ferved to exprefs great ignorance in any fcience. This bird was formerly much efteemed as a food; made a favourite difh at great tables, and was valued at the fame rate as a Pheasant. It is faid to be very long lived; by Mr. Keyfler's account it may exceed fixty years +: and by a recent inftance of one that was taken in Holland by a hawk belonging to the ftadtholder, its longevity is again confirmed, the bird having a filver plate faftened to one leg, with an infcription, importing it had been before ftruck by the elector of Cologne's hawks in 1735. * In after times this proverb was abfurdly corrupted to, He does not know a hawk from a hand-faw. Keyfler's Travels, 1. 70. The The male is a most elegant bird: the weight about three pounds and a half, the length, three feet three; the breadth, five feet four; the bill fix inches long, very ftrong and pointed: the edges thin and rough; the color dusky above, yellow beneath; noftrils linear; the irides of a deep yellow; orbits and space between them and the bill covered with a bare greenifh skin. The forehead and crown white, the hind part of the head adorned with a loose pendent creft of long black feathers waving with the wind; the upper part of the neck is of a pure white, and the coverts of the wings of a light grey; the back clad only with down, covered with the scapulars; the fore part of the neck white spotted with a double row of black: the feathers are white, long, narrow, unwebbed, falling loose over the breaft; the scapulars of the same texture, grey streaked with white. The ridge of the wing white, primaries and bastard wing black; along the fides beneath the wings is a bed of black feathers, very long, foft and elegant; in old times used as egrets for the hair, or ornaments to the caps of Knights of the garter; the breast, belly, and thighs white: the last dashed with yellow. The tail confists of twelve short cinereous feathers: the legs are of a dirty green: the toes long, the claws fhort, the inner edge of the middle claw finely ferrated. The head of the female is grey: it wants the long creft, having only a short plume of dufky feathers: the feathers above the breast fhort; the fcapulars grey and webbed: the fides grey. This has hitherto been fupposed to be a diftinct fpecies from the former; but later obfervations prove them to be the fame. FEMALE Le |