294 EEMINISCENCES OF A SPORTSMAN. 



ornaments for the caps and helmets of the nobility ; and 

 they still appear as part of the costume of the Grarter. 

 Chardin informs us that they were equally in request in 

 Persia, and, to obtain them, they entrapped and turned 

 them out again. In the breeding season herons con- 

 gregate, and are ranked under the term of jjlatform 

 builders ; for although they make a slight depression in 

 the centre of the nest, which is lined with some sort of 

 soft material, such as grass, wool, or feathers, the prin- 

 cipal dimensions of the nest is quite flat, and supported 

 by sticks that are crossed between the branches of the 

 tree. All this species of birds are social, like the rooks ; 

 and as regards their nests, where they congregate to 

 breed, it is usually termed a heronry. Belon says the 

 flesh of the heron was royal food in France ; and that it 

 was in ancient times equally prized in England. Esta- 

 blished heronries were originally very numerous, and 

 kept up with the greatest care, and every inducement 

 was held out to attach the birds to the locality. The 

 heronries of this country, according to the author first 

 quoted, are, " in Windsor great park, on the borders of 

 Bagshot Heath ; at Penshurst Place, Kent ; at Hutton, 

 the seat of Lord Carnarvon ; in Grobay Park, on the road 

 to Penrith, near a rocky pass called Tyen Coag, on the 

 north side of the romantic lake of Ulswater ; at Cressi 

 Hall, six miles from Spalding, in Lincolnshire ; at 

 Downington, in the same county ; at Brockly woods, near 

 Bristol ; at Brownsea Island, near Poole, in Dorsetshire ; 

 at Didlington, in Norfolk. Colonel Montague notices a 

 heronry of Scotland, on a small island in a lake : there 

 being only a scrubby oak, much too scanty to contain 

 all the nests, many were placed on the ground. " Be- 

 sides these," he says, " we are acquainted with a small 



