DECAY OF CERTAIN SPECIES. 117 



more advanced than many others. They well deserved the care of 

 man. All of them possessed merits of diverse originality. The social 

 instinct of the cranes, and their various imitative talent, rendered 

 them amusing and agreeable. The joviality of the pelican, and his 

 joyous humour; the tenderness of the goose, and his strong faculty of 

 attachment; and, finally, the good disposition of the storks, their piety 

 towards their aged parents, confirmed by so many witnesses, formed 

 between this world and our own firm ties of sympathy, which human 

 levity ought not barbarously to have rent asunder. 





[NOTE. Heronries in England. The heron, though rare in England, is certainly not so 

 scarce as he seems to he in France, perhaps because it is against the laws of sport to hunt 

 him. In some districts the man who shot a heron would be regarded with as much scora 

 as if he had killed a fox. He is a very rapacious bird, and it is asserted that, on an average, 

 he will destroy daily half a hundred small roach and dace. 



There is a fine heronry at Cobham, near Gravesend, in Kent, the seat of the Earl of 

 Parnley. Another, in Great Sowdens Wood, on the Rye road, one mile from Udimere, in 

 Sussex, contains fully four hundred nest-*. That at Parham, the Hon. R. Curzon's 

 beautiful seat has quite a history. 



