388 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



forty years since the last nest was seen, and the number of nests 

 cannot be given. They were on Larch trees, and the birds are 

 supposed to have been driven away by the lessening of the trees 

 and the laying of a railway close by the plantation. ^ Out of my 

 Lanarkshire localities, then, there are only Crawford and Douglas 

 Castle in existence to-day. 



Stirlingshire. 



In the part of this county which is in "Clyde" the old 

 Statistical Account ^ gives the following record (which, it may 

 be mentioned, is the only notice in that work of the nesting of 

 the Heron in "Clyde"), under Killearn : — "Herons have their 

 periodical haunts in several places of the parish, as at Balglass and 

 Corbeth, where in tall Fir trees they annually bring forth their 

 young." Another Stirlingshire Heronry of which I can tell was 

 also in this parish, and I regret to say is now extinct; but, 

 thanks to Mr. J. A. Haryie-Brown, the complete story is 

 available by means of the correspondence which he generously 

 placed at my disposal, and Avhich is summarised below. 

 I had often heard of a Heronry — a large one — at Killearn 

 House, but on two recent visits (1897 and 1898) could 

 see nothing of it. Subsequently I learned that about six years 

 ago (1893) the birds deserted the place altogether for breeding, 

 the immediate cause being a gale which blew down some of their 

 nesting trees. Emeritus Prof. Blackburn, who remembers the place 

 fifty years ago, says there were no Herons nesting then, and they 

 probably first built about 1859.'' The charming sketch in Mrs. 

 Blackburn's Birds from Moidart and Elsewhere of a " Heron's 

 nest and young was drawn from one which had fallen from a 

 high tree at Killearn," * and the print is dated 1862. There 

 were only three or four nests then, but they slowly increased, and 

 about 1876 there were eight nests in the Heron Badan, and three 

 or four at the foot of the glen, and one year three at the junction 

 of the Dhualt and the Blane. This was the maximum, and the 

 hard winters of 1879-80 and 1880-1 killed a great many birds, 



1 Mr. G. Young, in lit., 17th January, 1899. 



2 Vol. XII. (1795), p. 109. 



' Mrs. Blackburn, in lit., 8th February, 1899. 

 * Edinburgh, 189o, p. U^. 



