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HERRICK

869

HERSCHEL

with wings closed its general color above is bluish-gray, the under part white with black markings on the side. It has plumes on the head, neck and back. It breeds throughout North America, nesting in large trees in impassable swamps. The smallest heron is the little green heron, quite common in timbered and well-watered regions.

HERON

The black-crowned night-heron nests in very large colonies. It is a southern bird, but breeds as far north as Massachusetts. As its name suggests, it is abroad at night, and feeds and flies by night. The little blue heron is a southern bird but wanders north in summer.

The plumes of the snowy heron or snowy egret have been its undoing, this wonderfully beautiful bird being another victim to the vanity of women and the greed of milliners. Once very abundant about the everglades of Florida, this bird was slain by the thousands during the nesting season and is now very rare in the United States.

Her'rick, Robert an English poet, was born in 1591 in London. The next year his father died, and he was bound for ten years as apprentice to his uncle, a goldsmith. In 1613 he was a fellow at St. John's, writing to his uncle letters for remittances. He took his degree in 1620, returned to London, and became the friend of Ben Jonson and his jolly acquaintances. In 1629 his mother died, and he took orders, only to be appointed to a poor living where he bemoaned his fate. His volumes embrace about 1,200 poems, among them the Mad Maid's Song; the Night Piece to Julia; and To the Virgins. He died in October, 1674. See Seventeenth-Century Studies, by Edmund Gosse.

Her'ring, a common, small, salt-water fish, It occurs in immense numbers, is easily captured, and is extensively known in the form of smoked herring. There are about 130 species found in all seas; many forms ascend rivers to spawn. The alewife and the shad belong to the herring family. The name is also given to a fresh-water fish, which resembles the marine herring in form, but belongs to quite a different family, viz., the whitefish family.

Herschel, Sir Frederick William, generally known as Sir William Herschel, a distinguished astronomer, was born at Hannover on Nov. 15, 1738, and died in England on Aug. 25, 1822. Herschel began his life as a musician. In 1756 he went to England and spent some years at Bath as a teacher of music. Meanwhile, all his spare time was devoted to grinding lenses, making telescopes and studying the heavens. In this work he was aided by his brother and sister. In 1781 he discovered a new planet, to which he gave the Latin name of Georgium Sidus, but which we now call Uranus. It probably was chiefly due to this discovery that he was called by King George III to be his private astronomer. This enabled him to lay aside his musical profession and devote himself to astronomy. He was permanently established at Slough near Windsor, and there spent the remainder of his life. Some of his more important contributions to science were a series of papers concerning the rotation of the planets and their satellites; the discovery of Uranus; extensive catalogues of double stars; memorable memoirs on the Motion of the Solar System in Space (1783-1818); the completion (1789) of his great reflecting telescope of 40 feet focal length and 4 feet aperture; and the discovery of the sixth and seventh satellites of Saturn in 1787 and 1789 respectively.

Herschel, Sir John Frederick William, the illustrious astronomer, only son of Sir F. William Herschel, was born at Slough, England, March 7, 1792, and died on May 11, 1871. He was educated at Cambridge, and in 1820 began his astronomical work, under the guidance of his father. In 1833 appeared his memoirs On the Investigation of the Orbits of Revolving Double Stars. To his father's long list of double stars, which he re-examined, he added many more of his own discovering. His next step was a thorough examination of the southern heavens. For this purpose he transported his instruments and family to the Cape of Good Hope in 1834. His Cape Observations, published in 1847, include a catalogue of the southern stars and nebulae, careful drawings and charts, a catalogue of double stars with descriptions of their orbits, etc. Herschel remained four years at the Cape, returning to England in 1838. He later gave considerable