The common heron of Europe, _Ardea cinerea_ of Linnaeus, is universally allowed to be the type of the family, and it may also be regarded as that of Professor Schlegel's first section. The species inhabits suitable localities throughout the whole of Europe, Africa and Asia, reaching Japan, many of the islands of the Indian Archipelago and even Australia. Though by no means so numerous as formerly in Britain, it is still sufficiently common,[1] and there must be few persons who have not seen it rising slowly from some river-side or marshy flat, or passing overhead in its lofty and leisurely flight on its way to or from its daily haunts; while they are many who have been entertained by watching it as it sought its food, consisting chiefly of fishes (especially eels and flounders) and amphibians--though young birds and small mammals come not amiss--wading midleg in the shallows, swimming occasionally when out of its depth, or standing motionless to strike its prey with its formidable and sure beak. When sufficiently numerous the heron breeds in societies, known as heronries, which of old time were protected both by law and custom in nearly all European countries, on account of the sport their tenants afforded to the falconer. Of late years, partly owing to the withdrawal of the protection they had enjoyed, and still more, it would seem, from agricultural improvement, which, by draining meres, fens and marshes, has abolished the feeding-places of a great population of herons, many of the larger heronries have broken up--the birds composing them dispersing to neighbouring localities and forming smaller settlements, most of which are hardly to be dignified by the name of heronry, though commonly accounted such. Thus the number of so-called heronries in the United Kingdom, and especially in England and Wales, has become far greater than formerly, but no one can doubt that the number of herons has dwindled. The sites chosen by the heron for its nest vary greatly. It is generally built in the top of a lofty tree, but not unfrequently (and this seems to have been much more usual in former days) near or on the ground among rough vegetation, on an island in a lake, or again on a rocky cliff of the coast. It commonly consists of a huge mass of sticks, often the accumulation of years, lined with twigs, and in it are laid from four to six sea-green eggs. The young are clothed in soft flax-coloured down, and remain in the nest for a considerable time, therein differing remarkably from the "pipers" of the crane, which are able to run almost as soon as they are hatched. The first feathers assumed by young herons in a general way resemble those of the adult, but the pure white breast, the black throat-streaks and especially the long pendent plumes, which characterize only the very old birds, and are most beautiful in the cocks, are subsequently acquired. The heron measures about 3 ft. from the bill to the tail, and the