ARDEA CINEREA. A481 
[Cambridgeshire], and am told they always frequent the same spot 
during the day, winging their flight in different directions about 
sunset. It is curious to see them first rise, some of them keeping 
their neck stretched out like Geese or Cormorants for a few seconds. 
I got a shot at them, by lying on my back in the sedges, and sending 
. ny companions round, but they were at too great a height for the 
shot to tell. In the Museum at this house [Beeston] is a Water- 
Rat that was taken whole from the inside of a Heron, and of the 
pellets which they reject, as all birds-of-prey do, and which are 
plentifully strewed under their nests, the chief ingredient is Water- 
Rats’ hair. It appears that if they let fall a fish from their nests 
they do not come down to pick it up, as I have several times seen 
fresh fish lying on the ground. I once, not long ago, found a piece 
from the middle of a two-pound eel, about eight inches long and 
still moving, and the Heron had probably been scared from its 
repast by my approach; but the most curious thing was that it was 
cut by the razor-like bill almost as neatly as it could have been 
by steel. Some shepherds assured me that it was the work of 
a Hernshaw. 
[The above is from the Ege-book, following the entry of a specimen which 
Mr. Wolley notes as having been afterwards “ broken to pieces.” | 
§ 53820. One—From Mr. Reid, 1844. 
Mr. Reid had it from Northampton. 
§ 5321. Zwo.—lsle of Mull, 1844. From Mr. G. D. Rowley. 
Taken under Mr. Rowley’s superintendence from cliffs in the Isle 
of Muil, during his reading excursion in 1844. 
§ 5322. Zhree.—Dalgety, Fifeshire, 26 April, 1850. “J. W. 
ipse.”” 
Mr. Marcet [cf. § 5175] and I discovered a Heronry at Braefoot, 
Dalgety, just opposite to Inch Colne. At the time I was his guest 
at Aberdour. We walked along the shore with our guns as far as 
the old church at Dalgety. On our return, after I had shot a 
Godwit, I heard a Heron scream as we approached the wood, and 
PART IV. Da | 
