COMMON HERON. 135 
birds had but just returned, and were busily employed 
in repairing and building their nests, proved very disas- 
trous, many, even that season, forsaking this haunt for 
either Costessey or Taverham. On the 24th of April of 
the same year, I visited the heronry, and found the 
wind had made sad havoe with the fine Scotch firs, which 
laid strewn in all directions, several with nests still 
in their branches, whilst the remains of many others 
crackled under foot at every step. There were more 
nests standing, however, than I at all expected to 
find ; and as the anxious parents soared high over head, 
waiting my departure, I was glad to see a goodly array 
of open bills and grizzly necks appearing in many cases 
above the platform of twigs. Yet from that time, 
partly owing, perhaps, to the loss of many favourite 
trees, and still more, I suspect, to the fact that men 
were employed throughout that breeding season in 
clearing out the fallen timber from the heronry, their 
numbers, year by year, gradually decreased, till, in 
1866, not more than two or three pairs returned to 
breed at Earlham; and this, from no interference on 
the part of the rooks, which, from other causes, had 
also diminished in number. 
At Costessey, as I am informed by the Rev. J. W. 
Evans, though at first disturbed by the keepers, they 
are now strictly preserved by the noble owner of the 
estate; and in 1866 about sixty nests were built in 
some spruce and birch trees at some little distance from 
the hall. Since that spring, however, many pairs have 
again returned to Earlham; and this year (1868) Mr. 
John Gurney informs me some sixteen or seventeen 
nests in their old quarters afford every hope that the 
Earlham heronry will be once more re-established. A 
further offshoot, also, from this heronry has been long 
established at Kimberley, where Mr. Lambert, the head 
gamekeeper, assures me he has known herons build on 
