Hern

HERN, Herodius, Herodio. This is a water-fowl, and wild. It is distinguished by its beak and long neck. It flies very high, lives along lakes, marshes and rivers, and feeds upon fish. Bitterns and Curlews are kinds of Herns, whereof there are several sorts, as the white Hern, the large grey, or ash-coloured Stork, the little ash-coloured, the chesnut, the tufted, the starry, and the black Hern, &c. All these differ something from one another either in size or colour; but all agree in living in and about the water, in having large legs, long beaks and necks: and most of them have a tuft upon their heads. They build their nests in woods of lofty trees. The trees on which their dung falls, lose their verdure, and die. They keep themselves for a long time, as it were, immoveable beside the water, waiting to surprize the fish when they are least aware of it. The Septuagint and St. Jerom seem to have taken it for the Stork; for they translate the Hebrew Chasid by Herodio. Chasid signifies merciful, compassionate. Storks are thought to be gentle, good-natur’d birds, and feed their old ones in their declining age¹; in which particular, the Ancients have observed, that they are often juster than man. Moses declares the Stork to be unclean, perhaps because it feeds on serpents. Herns are creatures, from the use whereof the Hebrews were enjoined by Moses to abstain. Job likewise speaks of Lev. xi. 19. Deut. xiv. 16. Job xxxix. 13. Psal. ciii. 13.them, Penna Struthionis similis est pennæ Herodii. And the Psalmist, Herodii domus dux est eorum. But Chasidah, which is the word in the original, signifies, according to the generality of Interpreters, a Stork: it comes from the Hebrew Chasid, Mercy; whereof the Stork is a symbol. Some old Latin Psalters, instead of Herodii domus, read fulicæ domus, a house for the Coot or Moor-hen. But the Septuagint, and many of the Interpreters, declare for the Hern.

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