Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/798

common Bittern of Europe, B. stellaris, was formerly an abundant bird in many parts of Britain; but, since the reclamation of the bogs and fens it used to inhabit, it is become only an irregular visitant,—though not a winter passes without its appearing in some numbers, when its uncommon aspect, its large size, and beautifully pencilled plumage cause it to be regarded as a great prize by the lucky gun;bearer to whom it falls a victim, Its value as a delicacy for the table, once so highly esteemed, has long vanished. The old fable of this bird inserting its beak into a reed or plunging it into the ground, and so causing the booming sound with which its name will be always associated, is also exploded, and nowadays indeed so few people in Britain have ever heard its loud and awful voice, which seems to be uttered only in the breeding-season, and is therefore unknown in a country where it no longer breeds,^[1] that incredulity as to its booming at all has in some quarters succeeded the old belief in this as in other reputed peculiarities of the species. The Bittern is found from Ireland to Japan, in India, aud throughout the whole of Africa—suitable localities being, of course, understood. Australia and New Zealand have a kindred species, B. peciloptilus, and North America a third, B. mugitans or B. lentiyinosus. The former is said to bellow like a bull, but authorities differ as to the vocal powers of the latter,^[2] which has several times wandered to Europe, and is distinguish- able by its smaller size and uniform greyish-brown prima- ries, which want the tawny bars that characterize B. stel- laris. Nineotherspecies of Bitterns from various parts of the world are admitted by Professor Schlegel, but some of them should perhaps be excluded from the genus Botaurus.

Fig. 3.—Boatbill.

Of the Night-Herons the same author recognizes six species, all of which may be reasonably placed in the genus Nycticorax, characterized by a shorter beak and a few other peculiarities, among which the large eyes deserve mention. The first is V. griseus, a bird widely spread over the Old World, and not unfrequently visiting England, where it would undoubtedly breed if permitted. Professor Schlegel unites with it the common Night-Heron of America; but this, though very closely allied, is generally deemed distinct, and is the .V. nevus or .V. gardeni of most writers. A clearly different American species, with a more southern habitat, is the .V. violaceus or WV. cayennensis, while others are found in South America, Australia, some of the Asiatic Islands, and in West Africa. The Galapagos have a peculiar species, iV. pauper, and another, so far as is known, peculiar to Lodriguez, .V, megacephalus, existed in that island at the time of its being first colonized, but is now extinct.

The Boatbill, of which only one species is known, seems to be merely a Night-Heron with an exaggerated Lill,—so much widened as to suggest its English name,—but has always been allowed generic rank. This curious bird, the Cancroma cochlearia of most authors, is a native of tropical America, and what is known of its habits shews that they are essentially those of a Vycticorax.^[3]

Bones of the common Heron and Bittern are not un- common in the peat of the East-Anglian fens. Remains from Sansan and Langy im France have been referred by M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards to Herons under the names of Ardea perplexa and A. formosa; a tibia from the Miocene of Steinheim by Dr Fraas to an A. sémzlis, while Professor Owen recognized a portion of a sternum from the London Clay as most nearly approaching this Family.

It remains to say that the Herons form part of Professor Huxley’s section Pelargomorphe, belonging to his larger group Desmognathe, and to draw attention to the singular development of the patches of “ powder-down” which in the family Avdecde attain a magnitude hardly to be found elsewhere. Their use is utterly unknown.

(a. n.)

HEROPHILUS. See Anatomy, vol. i. p. 801–2.

HERRERA, Fernando de (1534–1597), lyrical poet, born at Seville in 1534. Although an ecclesiastic, he addressed his verses to an Andalusian lady, said to have been the countess of Gelves, under different names; but his love was as Platonic as Petrarch’s, and served only to lend additional beauty and tenderness to his poems. Herrera has been celebrated in a sonnet by Cervantes ; and his poems were taken as models by the later poet, Lope de Vega. He died at Sevillein 1597. Flourishing at a time when the Castilian language was not yet ripe for the higher lyrical efforts, Herrera endeavoured to remedy the defects of his native tongue by expelling from poetry the more vulgar and trivial words, by introducing words in their place from Greek, Latin, and Italian, and by employing unfamiliar inflexions and inverted constructions so as to approach more nearly the model of the classical tongues. His system, however, was theoretical and artificial, and not inspired by any genuine impulse of taste, so that in many instances where he strives to be elevated and correct, he succeeds only in being affected and formal.

Herrera published his critical views in 1580, in able notes to the works of Garcilaso, whose Italian style he followed in a yelume of poems which appeared in 1582. Of these the sonncts are poor, the elegies good, and the sixteen canzones or odes best of all. The finest of these last are perhaps the two on the battle of Lepanto and on the overthrow of Sebastian of Portugal. The Pindaric ode on sleep has been frequently praised. Pacheco, the painter, published additional poems of Herrera in 1619; and Fernandez added still more in the fourth and fifth volumes of his Poesias Castellanas, in 1808. The Battle of the Giants, The Rape of Proserpine, The Amadis, and The Loves of Laurino and Carona are among the titles of longer poems of Herrera which are now lost. Of his prose works the chief are the Relacion de la Guerra de Chipre y batalla de Lepanto, 1572; and the Vida y muerte de Tomas Moro, 1592, translated from Stapleton’s Latin Lives of the Thrice Thomases. lis History of Spain till the time of Charles V., said by Rioja to have been completed about 1590, has not come down to our time.

 

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1. The last-recorded instance of the Bittern breeding in England was in 1868, as mentioned by Mr Stevenson (Birds of Norfolk, ii. p. 164). All the true Bitterns, so far as is known, lay eggs of a light olive-brown colour.
2. Richardson, a most accurate observer, positively asserts (Fauna Boreali-Americana, ii. p. 374) that its booming exactly resembles that of its Old-World congener, but American ornithologists seem only to have heard the croaking note it makes when disturbed.
3. The very wonderful Shoe-bird (Baleniceps) has been regarded by many authorities as allied to Cancroma, but there can be little doubt that it is more nearly related to the genus Scopus belonging to the Storks. The Sun-Bittern (Furypyga), by some systematists con- sidered to belong to the Ardefder, would appear to have greater affinity to the Raddida, if it does not form a Family of itself.