100 BRITISH BIRDS. 



they have even been known to nest on the ground at the 

 edge of a cHff (in Hoy^) or on the bare hillside (in Irelandt) 

 amongst heather or bracken. 



Instances of their breeding on cliifs are fairly numerous. 

 Dr. Pattent states that he has found a few nests on the 

 rugged cliffs of the Dingle Peninsula, and Mr. Harvie 

 Brown found three or four pairs on the Black Craig, near 

 Stromness.'^ The colony on Ardnamurchan Point is well 

 known to all writers on British Birds. t 



In Holland at the present day, we have evidence that at 

 least in one locality, nesting in reed-beds is the Common 

 Herons' usual custom. || But for instances in this country 

 we must go back to the beginnmg of the last century. 



Writing of the Norfolk Heronries in 1866, Stevenson§ 

 says : "At that time" {i.e., that of Sir Thomas Browne), 

 "and, indeed, until within the last forty or fifty years, 

 Herons did not build exclusively in lofty trees, seeking the 

 vicinity of man's dwellings, and gathering together in 

 colonies like the rooks, but were scattered in pairs over 

 the Fens and Broads, where their nests were placed, some- 

 times on a lofty alder in a carr, sometimes on the dwarf 

 sallow and alder bushes in the marsh, or were hidden, like 

 those of the Bittern, amongst the reeds and sedges. 



" In many such localities the nature of the soil must 

 in itself have afforded sufiicient protection — the swamp 

 presenting an impenetrable barrier against all human 

 depredators ; but of late years the reclamation effected by 

 artificial drainage would account, independently of our 

 numerous gunners, for the abandonment by the Herons of 

 their older haunts. Mr. Lubbock refers to these marsh 

 breeders, and I have conversed with many residents in the 

 Broad district who remember their nesting at Ranworth, 

 Horsey, Irstead, and other places ; and even the Didlington 



* " A Fauna of the Orkney Islands." Harvie Brown and Buckley, p. 162. 



t Yarrell, B. B., lY., pp. 162-163. 



X "The Aquatic Birds of Great Britain," p. 15. 



ii E. B. Lodge. " Pictures of Bird Life," pp. 241-242. 



§ " Birds of Norfolk," II., pp. 131-132. 



