N. F. TICEHURST : NESTING OF HERONS. 101 



Heronry is said to have been established some sixty years 

 ago by a considerable colony, which formerly " {i.e., about 

 the end of the eighteenth century) "had their nests on low 

 sallow bushes or amongst the sedges on the borders of 

 Feltwell and Hockwold Fens." 



We must therefore regard the instance that I have 

 described above as a temporary relapse to an ancestral 

 habit which has been abandoned by Herons in this country 

 in consequence of human influence, but which yet survives 

 elsewhere, in places where drainage has not robbed the 

 birds of their original homes. 



It would be a grand thing if this one pair should increase 

 in time to a large colony, nesting as their ancestors else- 

 where did amongst the thick reeds and sedges of these 

 Dungeness pits. With the efficient protection that is now 

 afforded to all birds in this area by the Royal Society for 

 the Protection of Birds, and the hearty co-operation of the 

 local owners and sporting tenants, there is at least the 

 hope that this happy result may be eventually realised. 



What may be regarded as a somewhat similar reversion 

 to long-lost habits is the instance related by Mr. Bidwell 

 at the meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club, on 

 May 15th last, of how a pair of Herons, in full possession 

 of their powers of flight, built their nest on the base of 

 the fountain near the palm-house in Kew Gardens. 



