These birds have not yet acquired their full plumage.
From the earliest times until the reign of William IV. the heron was specially protected by law, being held in high regard both as an object of sport and a desirable addition to the dinner-table. So late as James I.'s time an Act was passed making it illegal to shoot with any gun within 600 paces of a heronry. The favourite way of taking the heron was by hawking, a sport which has furnished material in abundance both for poet and painter.
Herons breed in more or less extensive colonies, the nests—somewhat bulky structures, made of sticks and lined with twigs—being placed in the tops of high trees. From four to six is the normal number of eggs, and these are of a beautiful sea-green colour. The young are thinly clad in long, hairy-looking down, and for some considerable time are quite helpless.
Similar in appearance to the common heron is the American Great Blue Heron, though it is by no means the largest of the herons, as its name might seem to imply. This distinction belongs to the Goliath Heron. A native of Africa, it is remarkable not only for its size, but for an extraordinary development of long, loose feathers hanging down from the lower part of the breast, and bearing a strange resemblance to an apron, concealing the upper part of the legs.
Passing over many species, we pause to descant on the Egrets. These are numbered amongst the most unfortunate of birds, and this because of the gracefulness and beauty of certain parts of the plumage worn during the breeding-season, which are coveted alike by Eastern magnates and Western women. The feathers in question are those known as "egrets," or, more commonly, "ospreys"; and their collection, as Professor Newton points out, causes some of "the most abominable cruelty practised in the animal world." The wearing of these feathers can no longer be excused; for Sir William Flower in England, and Professor W. E. D. Scott in America, have given the greatest publicity to the horrible barbarities and sickening scenes which are perpetrated by the men sent to gather in this harvest. The egrets, however, are not the only victims, as a glance at the milliners' windows will show, the distorted and mangled bodies of almost every known species of the smaller birds being therein displayed! Many of those who wear these "ornaments" offend unwittingly; it is certain that if they realised the suffering and waste of life that this method of decoration entails they would eschew any but ostrich feathers for ever.
Photo by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt] [Washington.
GREEN HERON.
This is a North American bird of skulking and nocturnal habits.
The Cattle-egret, better known as the Buff-backed Heron, breeds in the southern portion of the Spanish Peninsula, where from March to autumn it is very common in the marshes of Andalusia, thousands congregating there, herding with the cattle, from the backs of which they may be often seen picking off the ticks; hence the Spaniards give them a name meaning "cattle-cleaners."