2 14 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS 



the Irish Heronries is given by Mr. Ussher in his 

 recently published " Birds of Ireland." 



Modern statistics show that Heronries in Great 

 Britain, instead of decreasing in number, as some 

 writers suppose, are really on the increase, and this 

 in spite of the persecution to which the birds are 

 subjected at the hands of the fish-preservers and 

 holders of a ten-shilling gun licence. 



That they are destructive to trout and salmon at 

 the spawning beds there can be no doubt, but they 

 may be driven or frightened away instead of being 

 killed, as too often happens. It is perhaps not 

 generally known that Herons are very useful in 

 killing rats. Selby, "111. Orn.," ii. p. 13; liarting, 

 " Sketches of Bird Life," p. 268 ; and Feilden, Zool.y 

 1892, p. 110. 



As an object of sport, the Heron has come to 

 be almost forgotten. There was a time, and that 

 within the memory of those still living, when Heron- 

 hawking was practised by an English falconer, who 

 died in his sixty-second year no longer ago than 

 1871 — the late Edward Clough Newcome, of Hock- 

 wold, in the county of Norfolk. For an account of 

 this almost forgotten sport, as practised by him and 

 other falconers, contemporaries and predecessors, see 

 the " Encyclopsedia of Sport," 1807, art. "Heron." 



Occasionally, when seeking to establish a new 

 colony, Herons will attempt to take forcible posses- 

 sion of a rookery, and pitched battles between the 

 two species will last for several days. A notable 

 instance of this occurred at Dallam Tower, West- 



