The Heron mentioned as an unclean bird—The Heron used for food in England, and considered as a delicacy—Sociable character of the bird, and its mode of feeding—Its enormous appetite—How the Heron fights—Ancient falconry—Nesting of the Heron—The papyrus marshes and their dangers— Description of the papyrus—Vessels of bulrushes—The Egret and its beautiful plumage—Uses of the train feathers.
In some of the cases where beasts or birds are prohibited as food, the prohibition seems scarcely needed. To us of the present day this seems to be the case with the Heron, as it is never brought to table. The reason for this disuse of the Heron as food is not that it is unfit for the table, but that it has become so scarce by the spread of cultivation and house building, that it has been gradually abandoned as a practically unattainable article of diet. The flash of the Heron, like that of the bittern, is remarkably excellent, and in the former days, when it was comparatively plentiful, and falconry was the ordinary amusement of the rich, the Heron formed a very important dish at every great banquet.
The bird, however, must be eaten when young. A gentleman who liked to try experiments for himself in the matter of food, found that, if young Herons were properly cooked, they formed a most excellent dish, equal, in his opinion, to grouse. Wishing to have his own judgment confirmed by that of others, he had several of them trussed and dressed like wild geese, and served up at table under that name. The guests approved greatly of the bird, and compared it to hare, the resemblance being further increased by the dark color of the flesh. There was not the slightest fishy flavor about the bird. This, however, is apt to be found in the older birds, but can be removed by burying them in the earth for several days, just as is done with the solan goose and one or two other sea-birds.
Several species of Heron inhabit Palestine, of which the common Heron (Ardea cinerea), with which we are so familiar in England, is perhaps the most plentiful; and it is to this bird that the prohibition chiefly extends. But there were several other species of the bird, as is implied by the language of the law, which prohibited the Heron “after her kind." The Egrets are probably included in this category; and, if the word kippod be really the hedgehog, it is tolerably certain that the bittern was included under the general term Anâphah, which is given in the Authorized Version as Heron. The Jewish Bible follows the same reading, but affixes the mark of doubt to the word.
The abundance of birds belonging to the Heron tribe is well shown by some of the paintings and carvings on Egyptian monuments, in which various species of Herons and other water-birds are depicted as living among the papyrus reeds, exactly the locality in which they are most plentiful at the present day.
Unlike the bittern, the Heron is a most sociable bird, and loves not only to live, but even to feed, in company with others of its own species. In Mr. Waterton's grounds, near Walton, I have watched the Herons feeding in close proximity to each other. The birds were fond of wading stealthily along the edge of the lake until they carne to a suitable spot, where they would stand immersed in the water up to the thighs, waiting patiently for their prey. They stood as still as if they were carved out of wood, the ripples of the lake reflected on their plumage as the breeze ruffled the surface of the water. Suddenly there would be a quick dive of the beak, either among the reeds or in the water, and each stroke signified that the Heron had caught its prey.
Frogs and small fishes are the usual food of the Heron, though it often grapples with larger prey, having been seen to capture an eel of considerable size in its beak. Under such circumstances it leaves the water, with the fish in its mouth, and beats it violently against a stone so as to kill it. Now and then the bird is vanquished in the struggle by the fish, several instances being known in which an eel, in its endeavors to escape, has twisted itself so tightly round the neck of the bird that both have been found lying dead on the shore.
In one such case the Heron's beak had struck through the eyes of the eel, so that the bird could not disengage itself. In another the Heron had tried to swallow an eel which was much too large for it, and had been nearly choked by its meal. The eel must necessarily have been a very large one, as the Heron has a wonderful capacity for devouring fish. Even when quite young, it can swallow a fish as large as a herring, and when it is full grown it will eat four or five large herrings at a meal.
Now when we remember that an Englishman of average appetite finds one herring to form a very sufficient breakfast, we can easily imagine What must be the digestive power of a bird which, though very inferior to man in Point of bulk, can eat four times as much at a meal. Even though the fish be much larger in diameter than the neck of the bird, the Heron can swallow it as easily as a small snake swallows a large frog. The neck merely seems to expand as if it were made of Indiarubber, the fish slips down, and the bird is ready for another.
Generally the Herons feed after sunset, but I have frequently seen them busily engaged in catching their prey in full daylight, when the sunbeams were playing in the water so as to produce the beautiful rippling effect on the Heron's plumage which has already been mentioned.
The Heron does not restrict itself to fishes or reptiles, but, like the bittern, feeds on almost any kind of aquatic animal which comes within its reach. When it lives near tidal rivers, it feeds largely on the shrimps, prawns, green clubs, and various other crustaceans; and when it lives far inland, it still makes prey of the fresh-water shrimps, the water-beetles, and the boat-flies, and similar aquatic creatures. In fact, it acts much after the fashion of the lions, tigers, and leopards, which put up with locusts and beetles when they can find no larger prey.
The long beak of the Heron is not merely an instrument by which it can obtain food, but is also a weapon of considerable power. When attacked, it aims a blow at the eye of its opponent, and makes the stroke with such rapidity that the foe is generally blinded before perceiving the danger. When domesticated, it has been known to keep possession of the enclosure in which it lived, and soon to drive away dogs by the power of its beak. When it is young, it is quite helpless, its very long legs being unable to support its body, which is entirely bare of plumage, and has a very unprepossessing appearance.
The flight of the Heron is very powerful, its wings being very large in proportion to its slender body.
Sometimes the bird takes to ascending in a spiral line, and then the flight is as beautiful as it is strong. When chased by the falcon it mostly ascends in this manner, each of the two birds trying to rise above the other.
The nest of the Heron is always made on the top of some lofty tree, whenever the bird builds in places where trees can be found; and as the bird is an eminently sociable one, a single nest is very seldom found, the Heron being as fond of society as the rook. In England the heronries are invariably found in clumps of trees, the nests of the birds being quite close together. In some parts of Palestine, however, where trees are very scarce, the Heron is obliged to choose some other locality for its nest, and in that case prefers the great thickets of papyrus reeds which are found in the marshes, and which are even more inaccessible than the tops of trees.
One of these marshes is well described by Mr. Tristram in his “Land of Israel." “The whole marsh is marked in the map as impassable; and most truly it is so. I never anywhere have met with a swamp so vast and utterly impenetrable. First there is an ordinary bog, which takes one up to one's knees in water; then, after half a mile, a belt of deeper swamp, where the yellow water lily (Nuphar lutea) flourishes; then a belt of tall reeds; the open water covered with white water-lily (Nymphœa alba); and beyond again en impenetrable wilderness of papyrus (Papyrus antiquorum), in the beautiful forest of which Dr. Thomson has not recognized the celebrated material of Egypt, though he has well described it under its Arabic name, babeer ' ("Land and Book," 259).
“The papyrus extends right across to the east side. A false step off its roots will take the intruder over head in suffocating peat-mud. We spent a long time in attempting to effect an entrance, and at last gave it up, satisfied that the marsh birds were not to be had. In fact, the whole is simply a floating bog of several miles square; a very thin trust of vegetation covers an unknown depth of water; and, if the explorer breaks through this, suffocation is imminent. Some of the Arabs, who were tilling the plain for cotton, assured us that oven a wild boar never got through it. We spot two bitterns, but in endeavoring to retrieve them I slipped from the root on which I was standing, and was drawn down in a moment, only saving myself from drowning by my gun, which had providentially caught across a papyrus stem.”
It may here be mentioned that the bulrush of Scripture is undoubtedly the papyrus. The ark or basket of bulrushes, lined with slime and pitch, in which Moses was laid, was made of the papyrus, which at the present day is used for the manufacture of baskets, mats, sandals, and for the thatching of houses. Many tribes which inhabit the banks of the Nile make simple boats, or rather rafts, of the papyrus, which they cut and tie in bundles; and it is worthy of notice that the Australian native makes a reed boat in almost exactly the same manner.
Compare Isa. 18:1, 21Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: 2That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled! (Isaiah 18:1‑2): "Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.
“That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes." Did we not know that vessels are actually made of bulrushes at the present day, a custom which has survived from very ancient times, we might find a difficulty in understanding this passage, while the meaning is intelligible enough when it is viewed by the light of the knowledge that the Ethiopian of the present day takes gold, and Ivory, and other merchandise down the Nile in his boat of papyrus (or bulrush) reeds tied together.
The papyrus runs from ten to fifteen or sixteen feet in height, so that the Herons are at no loss for suitable spots whereon to place their nests. The name “papyrus," from which our word" paper "is derived, is nothing more than a Latinized form of the old Arabic name" babeer" It is never found except in muddy and swampy places such as those which have already been mentioned. Thus we have in Job 8:1111Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water? (Job 8:11) a reference to this quality of the papyrus: “Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water?”
THE Egrets, which are probably included under the generic title of Anâphah, are birds of passage, and at the proper season are plentiful in Palestine. These pretty birds much resemble the heron in general form, and in general habits both birds are very much alike, haunting the marshes and edges of lakes and streams, and feeding upon the frogs and other inhabitants of the water. In countries where rice is cultivated, the Egret may generally be seen in the artificial swamps in which that plant is sown. The color of the Egret is pure white, with the exception of the train. This consists of a great number of long slender feathers of a delicate straw color. Like those which form the train of the peacock, they fall over the feathers of the tail, and entirely conceal them. The train of the Egret is highly valued in the East, brushes being made of them wherewith flies can be driven away, or delicate articles dusted. As the bird is a very shy and wary one, these feathers cannot be easily procured, especially as they do not make their appearance until the bird has reached its third year, and had time to learn the signs of approaching danger. The Egret is rather larger than the heron, a full-grown specimen measuring about four feet in length, whereas the heron is scarcely more than a yard in total length The train-feathers of the Egret add, however, to the apparent size of the bird.