HERONRIES IN THE CLYDE FAUNAL AREA. 391 



there are two colonies within the poHcies. Near the mansion- 

 house, high up in Beech trees, all in one place, are a few 

 nests ^ (say about half-a-dozen), and in the other place are 

 about twelve nests in Scots Firs. The last-named place has 

 been known for at least twelve years, and four years ago 

 (1894) there were only about six nests," which, I hope, means 

 a genuine increase. At the north end of the Island of Bute 

 Mr. Robert H. Read, on 4th April, 1893, found a breeding- 

 place which must have existed for some years, with about a 

 dozen nests, but many of them were evidently deserted. " The 

 nests," as Mr. Read writes to me,^ "were mostly built on the 

 tops of thick hawthorn bushes, but there was one (or more) in an 

 oak. Although not more than 10 or 12 feet from the ground, 

 these nests were most difficult to get at. They were fully a yard 

 in diameter. ... I found one with three eggs and another 

 with four." Mr. Read seems only to have been in time to see 

 the last of this colony, for when he visited the place again, 

 in April, 1897, it was entirely deserted, and he did not see 

 a bird in the neighbourhood.* In 1884 Mr. Da\dd M. Scott, of 

 Lamlash Lighthouse, stated that Herons were always in the 

 locahty, " as they breed on the high rocks on the island " ^ 

 (Holy Island) ; but the present principal keeper, Mr. James 

 Edgar, does not think they nest there. In the summer 

 he has seen as many as 20 at a time frequenting the high 

 rocks on the south-west side of the island, and it is believed 

 that the Herons from Brodick Castle bring their young, as 

 soon as they can fly, over to Holy Island, as a feeding ground. ^ 

 Regarding the Brodick Heronry, about 1872 there was a 

 considerable number of nests, '^ and they were placed in high 

 Beech trees near the Castle. There is a local superstition 

 that the prosperity of the Dukes of Hamilton is connected w^th 



1 Marquess of Bute, in lit., 25th February, 1899. 

 - Mr. F. W. Saunders, in lit., 3rd March, 1899. 



' 31st December, 1898. See also R. Bowdler Sharpe's Handhooh to 

 the Birds of Great Britain, III., pp. 72-3 (189(5). 



4 Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glas., V. (N.S.), 1897, p. 148. 



" Report on Migration of Birds for 1884, P- 78. 



6 Mr. J. Edgar, in lit., 10th April, 1899. 



' Bryce's Geology of Arran, d-c. (4th ed., 1872), p. 304. 



