GREAT HERON. 45 



in his annual migrations. When he leaves the coast, and 

 traces on wing the meanders of the creek or river, he is be- 

 lieved to prognosticate rain ; and when he proceeds down- 

 wards, dry weather. From his timorous vigilance and wild- 

 ness it is very difficult to approach him with a gun, and 

 unheeded as a depredator on the scaly fry, he is never sought 

 but as an object of food, and for this purpose the young are 

 generally preferred. 



The present is very nearly related to the common Heron 

 of Europe, which appears to be much more gregarious at 

 their breeding places than ours, for Pennant mentions hav- 

 ing seen as many as eighty nests on one tree; and Mon- 

 tague saw a heronry, on a small island, in a lake, in the 

 north of Scotland, whereon there was only one scrubby oak 

 tree, which being insufficient to contain all the nests, many, 

 sooner than abandon the favorite situation, were placed on 

 the ground. The decline in the amusement of hawking 

 has now occasioned but little attention to the preservation 

 of heronries, so that nine or ten of these nurseries are now 

 nearly all that are known to exist, at present, in Great Bri- 

 tain. Not to know a Hawk from a Heronslioiv , (the former 

 name for a Heron) was an old adage, which arose when the 

 diversion of Heron-hawkincr was in high fashion : and it has 

 since been corrupted into the absurd vulgar proverb, " not 

 to know a hawk from a handsaw !" As the rooks are very 

 tenacious of their eyries, and piratical to all their feathered 

 neighbors, it might be expected that they would at times 

 prove bad and encroaching neighbors to the quiet Herons, 

 and I have been credibly informed by a friend*, that at Mr. 

 Wilson's, at Dallam Tower, near Milthorp, in Westmorland, 

 a battle took place betwixt the Rooks and Herons for the pos- 

 session of certain trees and old nests, which was continued 



* Mr. King, of Vriggleswortli, Yorkshire. 



