184 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIEE. 



thirty or forty feet from the ground. There is a small 

 heronry, occupied at the present time, in some trees at Friar^s 

 Court, Clanfield (J. W. B. Bell hi lit.), while Herons have 

 been known to breed casually in other localities. Mr. H. 

 Gale informed Mr. Harcourt (in 1887) that, two years before, 

 a Heron^s nest was pointed out to him at Waterperry, and he 

 had been told that they nested at Rycote. In the autumn of 

 1886, I saw a Heron^s nest in one of a row of trees in the 

 meadows at the junction of the Sorb rook and the Cherwell, 

 near Adderbury, where one or two birds may generally be seen. 

 The tenant of the land said a pair of Herons built it just 

 before the meadows were mown, but, being disturbed by the 

 haymakers, they left it, returning when the fields were quiet 

 again. I do not think any young were hatched, and as these 

 birds usually breed very early in the year (having eggs some- 

 times in the third week in February), the occm-rence must be 

 considered abnormal. Most of the Herons so commonly seen 

 upon Port Meadow, Oxford, are drawn from the colony in the 

 Wytham Woods, on the Berkshire banks of the river, while 

 those seen about Henley have their home at Harleyford, about 

 four miles from the Oxfordshire borders, where they have 

 bred for many years in a clump of Scotch firs. (A. H. Cocks 

 in lit.) 



The Heron is a pretty constant visitor to all our river val- 

 leys, being often seen in the north of the county, even in 

 summer, and especially at night at that season. In winter 

 they are always to be found in the Cherwell valley, often four 

 or five together, and on the 26th November, 1882, I saw as 

 many as eleven rise together from a flooded meadow at Nell 

 Bridge, near Adderbury. 



THE PURPLE HERON. 



Ardea purpurea. 

 The Purple Heron has occurred in three instances. Mr. T. 

 Goatley informed the Messrs. Matthews of one shot some 



