PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 327 



of dark slate colour streaked with white. The young till fledged is but sparsely 

 covered with long, yellow, filamentous threads, [w. P. P.] 



2. Distribution. In the British Isles the heron is very widely but some- 

 what unevenly distributed, and although the largest colonies are mostly in England, 

 it is probably most general in parts of Scotland and Ireland. About two hundred 

 English heronries are catalogued by Mr. F. Bonnet, and some forty in Wales, while 

 in Scotland two hundred and thirty sites are mentioned in the Annals Scot. Nat. 

 Hist. (1908, p. 218), but about forty-five of these are now deserted. Nearly fifty 

 are mentioned by Mr. Bonnet from Ireland, but this list is very incomplete. There 

 are several breeding-places in the Orkneys, and Saxby states that it has bred in the 

 Shetlands. In the Outer Hebrides it was first recorded as nesting in 1902. On the 

 Continent its northern limit extends to Trondhjems Fjord in Norway, sparingly 

 to Dalecarlia and Jemtland in Sweden, and in Russia from the southern shores of the 

 Gulf of Finland to about lat. 60 N. in the Perm government. Southward of these 

 limits its range extends over the greater part of Europe to the Mediterranean, but 

 it has not yet been found breeding in South Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, or Southern Italy, 

 though a few nest in Corsica and Northern Italy. Possibly a few breed on the 

 Azores and Tenerife, and apparently some also nest in North Africa, while there 

 is evidence that it is also resident in Southern Africa and Madagascar, and breeding 

 has been recorded from the Transvaal, Orange River and Cape Colonies. In Asia 

 it ranges north to the central districts of Tobolsk and Tomsk and the Upper Lena, 

 while southward it breeds in Palestine, the Persian Gulf, India, and Ceylon, but 

 apparently East Asiatic birds differ to some extent. Although chiefly a resident, it 

 occurs casually in the Faeroes, Iceland, and even Greenland. [F. c. R. J.] 



3. Migration. A resident and a winter visitor. Our own native herons 

 are probably sedentary, being found in the heronries from February till August, 

 and sometimes visiting them in winter (cf. Saunders, III. Man. Brit. B., 2nd ed., 

 1899, p. 368). During the winter the birds are naturally less locally distributed, 

 and at that season their numbers are increased to some extent by immigrants from 

 the Continent. These winter visitant birds have been exceptionally recorded as 

 early as 8th July, but they usually arrive between 2nd September and 29th 

 November (cf. Clarke, Studies in Bird Migration, 1912, vol. i. p. 159). The influx 

 chiefly affects the east of Great Britain, and on the Yorkshire coast the birds may 

 annually be seen arriving from the east, flying high over the sea ; but in Kent 

 the species is described simply as " resident " (cf. Nelson, B. of Yorks., 1907, p. 389 ; 

 and Ticehurst, B. of Kent, 1909, p. 304). The Dumfriesshire stock of herons is 



