COMMON HEEON. 135 



birds had but just returned, and were busily employed 

 in repairing and building their nests, proved very disas- 

 trous, many, even that season, forsaking this haunt for 

 either Costessey or Taverham. On the 24th of April of 

 the same year, I visited the heronry, and found the 

 wind had made sad havoc with the fine Scotch firs, which 

 laid strewn in all directions, several with nests still 

 in their branches, whilst the remains of many others 

 crackled under foot at every step. There were more 

 nests standing, however, than I at all expected to 

 find ; and as the anxious parents soared high over head, 

 waiting my departure, I was glad to see a goodly array 

 of open bills and grizzly necks appearing in many cases 

 above the platform of twigs. Yet from that time, 

 partly owing, perhaps, to the loss of many favourite 

 trees, and still more, I suspect, to the fact that men 

 were employed throughout that breeding season in 

 clearing out the fallen timber from the heronry, their 

 numbers, year by year, gradually decreased, till, in 

 1866, not more than two or three pairs returned to 

 breed at Earlham; and this, from no interference on 

 the part of the rooks, which, from other causes, had 

 also diminished in number. 



At Costessey, as I am informed by the Rev. J. W. 

 Evans, though at first disturbed by the keepers, they 

 are now strictly preserved by the noble owner of the 

 estate ; and in 1866 about sixty nests were built in 

 some sj)ruce and birch trees at some little distance from 

 the hall. Since that spring, however, many pairs have 

 again returned to Earlham ; and this year (1868) Mr. 

 John Gurney informs me some sixteen or seventeen 

 nests in their old quarters afford every hope that the 

 Earlham heronry will be once more re-established. A 

 further offshoot, also, from this heronry has been long 

 established at Kimberley, where Mr. Lambert, the head 

 gamekeeper, assures me he has known herons build on 



