32 THE HOME-LIFE OF 



23 days after the laying of the last egg, the remainder 

 all being hatched two days later. This gives a possible 

 maximum incubation period of 25 days, and a minimum 

 of 23 for the last laid egg, either of which is less than 

 that generally ascribed to this bird. 



At a casual glance the flight of a Heron seems some- 

 what slow and laboured, but it is in reality very 

 powerful, and though the beating is slow and heavy the 

 great wings carry it along at a far faster rate than 

 is often imagined. They travel great distances in search 

 of food, and we constantly saw the birds from this 

 heronry fishing the shallow moorland streams some 12 

 to 15 miles away, and hear that while the young are in 

 the nests they nightly visit a feeding ground full 20 

 miles distant. 



That Herons destroy a large number of fishes, more 

 especially trout in the moorland burns, there is no 

 doubt, and it is a great pity they range so far afield 

 during the breeding season, for however willing the 

 owner of the estate whereon they build may be for them 

 to share his fish, he cannot instil the same magnanimous 

 spirit into all the landlords and tenants with a 20-mile 

 radius. And so it too often happens that as a gun's 

 report echoes over the fells it proclaims a handsome 

 addition to be nailed on the game-keeper's " larder," and 

 at the same time foretells of a family far away in the 

 great oak wood left to die a miserable death by slow 

 starvation. More than once I have found shrivelled 

 little bodies lying in the great flat nests — mute testimony 

 of such a tragedy. 



Six weeks passed by before we were again able to pay 

 the heronry another visit, and now as we moved beneath 

 the trees we could see the long thin necks of young Herons 

 thrust up above the edges of the nests, while here and 

 there others more advanced were perching in the branches 

 near at hand. There were necks protruding from our 

 nest, too, but as we neared the tree-foot they were with- 



