HERON. 143 



At Willey Lodge, near Lingen, at the beginning of the present 

 century, a large number of Herons, considerably over a hundred 

 families, occupied a grove of lofty oaks, and they remained there 

 up to the year 1836, when the trees were felled. These birds were 

 believed to have gone to Plowden, near Bishop's Castle, from the 

 great increase in the number of Herons that took place there just 

 at that time. 



A large Heronry existed in the Hawkswood, at the Moor, 

 near Hay, where a considerable number of Herons built on some 

 tall oak trees. This Heronry was in the immediate vicinity of a 

 Rookery, and here might be seen in spring, a curious border 

 warfare between these very different birds, for the possession of 

 some particular tree. This Heronry was numerously occupied, up 

 to the year 1852, when a large fall of timber disturbed the birds. 

 In the year 1856, there were still about a dozen nests, but the 

 number of Herons gradually diminished, until they were reduced 

 to a single pair, which built there in 1863 for the last time. 



Single pairs of Herons have nested in many parts of the 

 county of late years, but have been too much disturbed to remain. 

 A pair of Herons built at Free Town, Stoke Edith, in 1876, but 

 the nest was robbed, in spite of the farmer, who wished to protect 

 them. Another pair built on the side of the canal, between 

 Ashperton and Bosbury, on the Canon Frome estate in 1881, but 

 again the nest was robbed of its eggs, and the birds left. In the 

 years 1880, and 1881, a pair of Herons built and reared their young, 

 in a copse on the Church House Farm, near Moreton Court ; they 

 returned on the following year, but some neighbouring trees had 

 been cut down, and they did not remain. A few years since, a 

 single pair of Herons built on a tree near the river Wye in the parish 

 of Fownhope. In 1883, Mr. Pitt, of Free Town, saw in the parish 

 of Stoke Edith, four young Herons, which had recently left the 

 nest somewhere in that neighbourhood. 



The Heronries existing at the present time in Herefordshire, 

 are reduced to two ; one at Berrington, near Eeominster, and the 



