COMMON HERON. 131 
from their high estate, but whilst the former, unhappily, 
meets no quarter at the hands of the gamekeeper, and 
ranks with the crow in the list of feathered vermin, the 
heron still retains a something of its former prestige, 
which, in the breeding season, at least, ensures it protec- 
tion, a heronry, at the present day, being still regarded 
by most persons as a coveted possession. 
Of this species Sir Thomas Browne* says, ‘‘the great 
number of rivers, rivulets, and plashes of water makes 
herns and herneries to abound in these parts; young 
herns being esteemed a festival dish, and much desired 
by some palates;” but at that time, 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 sometimes 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 sufficient protection—the swamp presenting an 
impenetrable barrier against all human depredators ; 
now a-days in many places the common name for Ardea cinerea, 
and seems as if it could be hardly anything else than the Sanskrit 
‘hansa.’ If so ‘heronshaw,’ abbreviated to ‘heron’ and ‘hern,’ 
is naturally from the same root.” Again in Taylor’s MS. appendix 
to Forby the derivation of heronsewe is given as from “the O. E. 
sewe a dish (whence sewer, one who serves up the dinner), hence 
heronsewe may be a heron fit for eating, young and tender.” 
* T wot not tellen of his strange sewes, 
Ne hir swans, ne hir heronsewes.”—CHAUCER. 
* Writing of the spoonbill breeding in Norfolk, Sir Thomas 
Browne states “that they formerly built in the Hernery at Claxton 
and Reedham, now at Trimley, in Suffolk;” but, as far I can 
ascertain, no heronry now exists in any of those localities, and, with 
the exception of the latter, they have probably been abandoned for 
many years. 
§ 2 
