182 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
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 heronry is said to have been established, 
some sixty years ago, by a considerable colony,* which 
formerly had their nests on low sallow-bushes, or 
amongst the sedges on the borders of the Feltwell and 
Hockwold fens. 
Through the kindness of several correspondents, and 
especially of Mr. Thomas Southwell, I have lately 
ascertained the existence of several small heronries in 
different parts of the county, which were unknown to 
me when writing the introduction to my first volume 
(p. lxiii.) Most of these are, however, offshoots from 
the older and better known colonies, and, from the 
changeable habits of this species, may in a few years 
be again abandoned. 
First in importance, of course, both from its extent 
and association with the history of falconry in this 
county, is the Didlington heronry before mentioned. 
Near this colony, at High Ash, the late Lord Berners 
(when Colonel Wilson) kept heron-hawks for many 
years, and special reference is made to this fact by the 
authors of “Falconry in the British Isles.”? These 
hawks, as stated in my notice of the peregrine, were 
subsequently supported by subscription, but were finally 
given up in 1836; and though Mr. Newcome, of 
* Mr. Alfred Newton was thus informed in 1853, by William 
Spencer, of Feltwell, who had been thoroughly well acquainted 
from his boyhood with the birds of the “Fen.” He was unable to 
say when the herons ceased to breed there, but “it was before 
his time,” his age being then fifty-three. 
