in ornithology, a genus of the order of gralls. The general characters of this order are these: The bill is straight, sharp, long, and somewhat compressed, with a furrow that runs from the nostrils towards the point; the nostrils are linear; and the feet have four toes. Under this genus Linnaeus comprehends the grus or crane, the ciconia or stork, and the ardea or heron, of other authors.
The first species is the pavonia, or crowned crane, which has an erect, bristly crest, with the temples and two wattles naked. The head is black; the crest is yellowish, and tipped with black at the top; the wings are white; and the feathers of the tail black, and of an equal length. It is a native of Africa.
2. The grus, or common crane of English authors, has a naked papillose crown; the prime feathers of the wings are black; the body is ash-coloured; the prime feathers of the tail are ragged. It is a native of Europe and Africa. It winters in Lithuania and Podolia: Trans Pontum fugat, et terris immittit apricis. Virg. This bird commonly rests upon one foot.—This species seems to have been formerly a native of Britain; as we find in Willoughby, page 52, that there was a penalty of twenty pence for destroying an egg of this bird; and Mr Ray informs us, that in his time they were found during the winter in large flocks in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire: but at present the inhabitants of those counties are scarcely acquainted with them; so that these birds seem now to have forsaken our island.
3. The Americana, or hooping crane of Edwards, is a native of America: The crown of the head and temples are naked and papillose; the forehead, nape of the neck, and prime wing-feathers, are black; but the body is white: The under part of the head, as far as the lower chap, is red; the beak is yellowish, and jagged at the point; the feet are red, and the prime tail-feathers white. Early in the spring great multitudes of them frequent the lower parts of the rivers near the sea, and return to the mountains in the summer. They make a remarkable hooping noise.
4. The ciconia, or white stork of Ray, has naked eye-balls, and black prime wing-feathers. The skin below the feathers, as also the beak, feet, and claws, are of a blood-colour. It is a native of Europe, Asia, and Africa; but is seldom or never to be met with in Italy. The ciconia feeds upon amphibious animals. It is such an enemy to serpents, that it is reckoned almost a crime to kill a stork. From this favourable treatment, they are seen in Holland and the Low Countries walking unconcerned in the middle of the streets. Storks are birds of passage; they spend the summer in Europe, and disappear all at once, and go off to Egypt, Ethiopia, &c. before winter, and do not return till about the middle of March.
5. The major, or common heron, has a black crest depending from the back part of the head, an ash-coloured body, and a black line and belt on the neck and breast. It is a native of Europe. This bird is remarkably light in proportion to its bulk, scarce weighing three pounds and a half: the length is three feet two inches; the breadth five feet four inches. The body is very small, and always lean; and the skin scarce thicker than what is called gold-beater's skin. It must be capable of bearing a long abstinence, as its food, which is fish and frogs, cannot be readily got at all times. It commits great devastation 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 sometimes in high cliffs over the sea, commonly in company with others like rooks. It makes its nest of sticks, lines it with wool; and lays five or six large eggs of a pale green colour. During incubation, the male passes much of its time perched by the female. They defend their nest during the winter, excepting in February, when they resort to repair them. It was formerly in this island a bird of game, heron-hawking being so favourite a diversion of our ancestors, that laws were enacted for the preservation of the species, and the person who destroyed their eggs was liable to a penalty of twenty shillings for each offence. Not to know the hawk from the heron-hawk was an old proverb *, taken originally from this diversion; but in course of time served to express great ignorance in any science. This bird was formerly much esteemed as a food; made a favourite dish at great tables, and was valued at the same rate as a pheasant. It is said to be very long-lived; by Mr Keyler's account it may exceed 60 years †; and by a recent instance of one that was taken in Holland by a hawk belonging to the Stadtholder, its longevity is again confirmed, the bird having a silver plate fastened to one leg, with an inscription, importing it had been before struck by the elector of Cologne's hawks in 1735.—The cinerea of Linnaeus is the female of this species.
6. The garzetta, or egret, is crested behind; the body is white, the beak black, and the feet greenish. It is a most elegant bird. It weighs about one pound; and the length is 24 inches, to the end of the legs 32. It is a native of the calf. But that formerly it was very frequent in Britain, appears by some of the old bills of fare; in the famous feast of Archbishop Neville, we find no less than a thousand arterides ‡, egrets or egrettes, as it is differently spelt. Perhaps the effect they were in as a delicacy during those days occasioned their extirpation in our islands; abroad they are still common, especially in the southern parts of Europe, where they appear in flocks. The scapulars and the crest were formerly much esteemed as ornaments for caps and head-pieces; so that aigrette and egret came to signify any ornament to a cap, though originally the word was derived from aigre, a cause de p. aigreur de sa voix *.
6. The herodias, or crista maxima, of Catesby, is crested behind, has a dulky-coloured back, reddish thighs, and the breast speckled with oblong black spots. It is four feet and a half when erect; the bill is about eight inches from the angle of the mouth to the end of it; and the crest is made up of long, narrow, brown feathers, the longest being five inches in length, which it can erect and let fall at pleasure. It is a native of Virginia, and feeds not only upon fish and frogs, but on lizards, efts, &c.
7. The stellaris, or bittern, has a smooth head; it is variegated through the whole body with dark-coloured spots of different figures and sizes. It is a native of Europe, and inhabits chiefly the fen-countries. It is met with skulking among the reeds and sedge; and its usual posture is with the head and neck erect, and the beak pointed directly upwards. It will suffer persons to come very near it without rising; and has been known to strike at boys and at sportsmen, when wounded and unable to make its escape. It flies principally about the dusk of the evening, and then rises in a very singular manner, by a spiral ascent, till it is quite out of sight. It makes a very strange noise when it is among the reeds, and a different and very singular one as it rises on the wing in the night. It builds its nest with the leaves of water-plants on some dry clump among the reeds, and lays five or six eggs of a cinerous green colour. This bird and the heron are very apt to strike at the fowler's eyes, when only maimed. The food of the bittern is chiefly frogs; not that it rejects fish, for small trouts have been met with in their stomachs. In the reign of Henry VIII. it was held in much esteem at our tables; and valued at one shilling. Its flesh has much the flavour of a hare, and nothing of the fishiness of that of the heron.
8. The violacea, or crested bittern of Catesby, has a white crest; the body is variegated with black and white, and bluish below. These birds are seen in Carolina in the rainy seasons; but in the Bahama Islands, they breed in bushes growing among the rocks in prodigious numbers, and are of great use to the inhabitants there; who, while these birds are young and unable to fly, employ themselves in taking them for the delicacy of their food. They are, in some of these rocky islands, so numerous, that in a few hours two men will load one of their calabashes, or little boats, taking them perching from off the rocks and bushes, they making no attempt to escape, tho' almost full grown. They are called by the Bahamians crab-catchers, crabs being what they mostly subsist on; yet they are well-taught, and free from any rank or fishy flavour.
Linnaeus enumerates 19 other species.
town of Latium, the royal residence of Turnus, king of the Rutuli, (Livy); so called, either from the augury of the heron, (Hyginus); or from the excessive heat of the country, (Martial). It was a marshy, sickly situation, (Strabo, Seneca). It was built by Danae, the mother of Perseus, (Virgil); about five miles distant from the sea, and 20 from Rome; now a hamlet. It was a Roman colony, (Livy). The inhabitants are called Ardeates. E. Long. 47° 49'. Lat. 41° 30'.