3-034-863 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Months: a solitary Christmas Eve, 1871. 'This heron...does not care to seek the company of his fellows, though it is Christinas Eve; but they can be sociable enough at times in their colony of nests on the high tree-tops of the neighbouring woodland...Ardea cineraria he is styled in scientific Latin...The figure and appearance of the heron are familiar to most of us, though some of us have seen him alive nowhere but in the Zoological Society's Gardens. He is about 3 ft. long, if we reckon the length of his neck and bill, with a stout, heavy body; in colour his back and sides are light grey, but the primary feathers of the wings are black, the tail is a deep slatey grey, the long pendent plume that hangs behind his head is of a dull bluish colour, the neck and breast are nearly white. His beak is strong and sharp as a dagger, and he knows how to use this terrible weapon. A heron has defeated a game-cock in single combat. There is a story of one being shut up in an aviary with five owls, and peeking out the eyes of all before they were rescued. Savage men, in some countries, make a serviceable light spear of the heron's beak fastened at the end of a stick'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.