Manchester Memoirs^ Vol. Iviii. (1914), No. t). 15 



birds. The stakes in the shallower water, placed there to 

 serve as mooring posts, are used as perches by this bird, 

 but when actually fishing it generally stands in the 

 vegetation at the edge of the mere. The nearest heronry 

 is in Tabley Park, near Knutsford, only a few minutes' 

 flight for these strong-winged birds. On the neighbouring 

 mere in Tatton Park the Herons feed largely on the 

 Bream, a fish which is more plentiful there than in the 

 deeper waters of Rostherne. Examination of the pellets 

 cast up by the Tabley birds proved that Water Voles 

 were largely preyed upon. We have no evidence of the 

 particular animals which are mostly captured at Rostherne. 



The Bittern is 

 Botaunis stellaris stellaris (Linnaeus), an occasional 



winter visitor to 

 the Cheshire meres, and when one appears it is seldom 

 alone. Unfortunately the bird is looked upon as a de- 

 sirable specimen, and one of the pair usually falls to the 

 gun in its wanderings in search of food. This is all the 

 more regretable because the Bittern almost without 

 question once nested in the reed-beds of the Cheshire 

 meres, and the experience of the last two or three years in 

 Norfolk proves that, if unmolested, the bird will remain to 

 nest. In February, 1900, a Bittern was unfortunately shot 

 at Rostherne, and a second bird was seen a little later; 

 since that date, however, Mr. Egerton has given orders 

 that no rare birds are to be shot, and one which was seen 

 by one of the gamekeepers in February, 1909, was 

 unmolested. The description of the bird was accurate. 



The Mute Swan is not looked 

 Cygnus olor (Gmelin). upon as a wild bird, but it 



exists throughout Cheshire in 

 a semi-domesticated condition, and the numbers which 

 visit Rostherne vary considerably. Pairs, families or 



