144 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
are, no doubt, similarly disposed of when opportunity 
offers. In the summer of 1847 Mr. Rising, of Horsey, 
disturbed a heron by the water’s edge, which rose with 
something in its beak, but having dropped its prey 
before it had flown far, Mr. Rising secured it, and 
found it no other than a young water rail, freshly killed 
and bleeding about the head. Mr. Newcome also tells 
me that during very severe weather he once saw a heron 
pick up something from the ground, and fly off with it 
for about a hundred yards, when it again alighted and 
began tumbling about in a very strange manner. On 
running up he was just in time to shoot a stoat that 
the bird had swallowed alive, but which it was only too 
happy to disgorge as quickly as possible. 
Whether any portion of our Norfolk herons proceed 
further south in severe winters, or more northern 
residents visit our shores, I have at present no certain 
evidence, but Mr. Frere is informed by a very trusty 
Yarmouth gunner that he has seen the heron when at 
sea, thirty miles from land, and that he last year (1867) 
shot one in November.* At Yarmouth, as Captain 
Longe informs me, it is not an unusual thing to see 
herons flying direct out to sea, but at low water it is 
probable that the shoals and sandbanks, unhappily so 
prominent on our dangerous coast, and accessible enough 
to such long legged birds, might attract them for a 
change of fish diet; at Cromer, also, I have more than 
once watched a heron, through a good glass, coming in a 
direction from Yarmouth, and passing along shore with 
a slow steady flight, making for some point not nearer, 
I should imagine, than Salthouse or Blakeney. 
The soaring flight of the heron, which Virgil, with 
* The instance above quoted (p. 139, note) seems to show that 
the Dutch herons emigrate to Algeria for the winter 
