
HERONRIES IN THE CLYDE. FAUNAL AREA. 385 
Erskine, is a nesting locality which has some interesting associa- 
tions, and which is the nearest spot to Glasgow where we can 
now expect to see a Heron’s nest, but I am afraid, at the most 
there have not been more than two nests annually for the last 
few years. Part of the wood bears the name of the ‘“ Heron 
Green,” and that there was a flourishing colony is borne out by 
the following passage from the new Statistical Account? of 
Erskine (dated August, 1840, and April, 1842)—“In the woods 
at Erskine, which overhang the Clyde, opposite the old Roman 
fortress of Dunglass, there is a large Heronry, which has existed 
there for a great length of time, and which is the more interest- 
ing, as it is alleged, there are only one or two more to be found in 
Scotland. It is a fine sight to observe these noble birds fishing 
in the river at ebb-tide, and their success may be estimated from 
the fact, that the walks under their nests are often strewed with 
flounders and other fish, which they have not been able to use.” 
This fine sight has departed, I fear,for ever. John Wolley, the great 
oologist, seems to have known this colony, as there is this entry 
in his Egg Books (MSS. ?) “1850. Heronry on Lord Blantyre’s 
estates on Clyde ;’* and Mr Harting mentions it as existing ‘in 
aged and lofty trees,”® although he puts Erskine under 
Dumbartonshire. Mr. W. A. Donnelly informs me that within 
the last thirty years there were about twenty birds nesting not 
far from the mansion-house in Ash, Elm, and Sycamore trees. 
In 1890 (3rd May) I first saw Herons here, and was informed 
that two pairs nested. I had much the same report for last 
year (1898).* The contiguous parish of Inchinnan at the time 
(1845) of publication of the new Statistical Accownt possessed a 
Heronry “on some high fir trees in Park wood, adjacent to the 
Newshot isle in the Clyde,”*> but of this I have no further 
information, nor do I know when it became extinct. Of Castle 
Semple a similar story to the Erskine one has to be related, and a 
like fate chronicled, for it is doubtful if one pair of Herons now 
nests there.6 The present keeper (G. M‘Arthur), whose recollec- 
evi ip wete e 
2 Mr, J. A. Harvie-Brown’s ‘‘ Clyde” file, per favour of Prof. A. Newton. 
3 Zoologist (1872), p. 3267. 
4 Mr. C. Hogg, in lit., 14th January, 1899. 
6 Vol. VII. (1845), p. 117. 
¢ Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glas., IV. (N.S.), p. 363. 
