THE COMMON HERON. 47 



The food of this voracious bird ^ consists of fish (of 

 which it consumes an immense amount), small animals, 

 such as rats and mice, young water birds, frogs, newts, 

 molluscs, crustaceans, worms, and insects. Mr. Brotherston, 

 Kelso, mentions having examined one which had upwards 

 of twenty newts in its stomach.- Mr. Ferguson, Duns, 

 informed me on the 25th of May 1887 that during the 

 spring of that year the Herons nesting in the Heronry at 

 Duns Castle carried off the greater number of the young 

 Coots in the lake there to feed their young. The game- 

 keeper repeatedly observed them swooping down close to the 

 water and picking up the young with their bills. The first 

 brood of Coots escaped, as they had grown up before the 

 young Herons were hatched. 



It is well known that the Heron, when wounded, is a 

 dangerous bird to approach, on account of its habit of 

 striking at the eye with its long-pointed bill. An instance 

 of this propensity is thus related in the Kelso Chronicle for 

 August 1852 : " One day last week, as two little boys from 

 the village of Dodmill, near Spottiswoode, were strolling 

 over Blythe Moor, one of them caught a Heron, with which 

 he eagerly ran to his companion to show him his prize. He 

 had no sooner, however, placed the bird on the ground than 

 it drove its bill into one of the other boy's eyes, which it 

 put quite out. The surgeon who examined the wound said 

 it was a matter of surprise that the bill of the bird did not 

 pierce the poor little fellow's brain." 



Two pools in the Dye are named after this bird — the 

 Heron's Hole, a short distance above Longformacus at a 

 sharp turn of the river ; and the Heron Scaur, on the north 

 side of the same stream, about a mile above Byrecleugh. 



^ Although the Heron is very ravenous, it is light for its size. An old male in 

 full plumage whicli I shot on the Langton Burn, near Wedderburn Castle, on the 

 29th of December 1886, weighed only 5^ lbs. 



8 Hist. Ber, Nat, Cluh, vol, vii. p. 502, 



