Sketches from Nature. 299 



herons is a rookery ; and although it has not 

 always been so, the two species now dwell 

 together in perfect amity. Nests of the herons 

 and of their sable companions are not un- 

 frequently found in the same tree. Any threat- 

 ened invasion of the two colonies of brooding 

 birds produces a very different result on their 

 respective denizens. The rooks get off their 

 nests and circle, crying and cawing, until the 

 disturber has vanished ; the herons fly silently 

 and straight away. During a stormy spring like 

 the present * many of the eggs are blown from the 

 nest and destroyed a fate which often befalls 

 the young herons themselves in autumn. Now 

 that the birds are breeding it is easy to see by 

 the aid of a binocular that they sit upon their 

 nests with their legs under them, and not (as was 

 once supposed) either pushed through the sticks 

 or thrust behind them. In its domestic relations 

 the heron is both amicable and honest. If a 

 nest is blown down the birds go to work in the 

 precincts of the rookery, but never touch the 

 rooks' sticks. The heron's nest is a rude, wide- 

 spreading platform constructed of beech-twigs, 

 and not lined with wool as generally stated, but 

 with the fine shoots of the larch. The appearance 

 is that of a ringdove's nest on a large scale, and 

 so open in texture that the sitting bird or eggs 

 may be seen through the foundation. The 



* 1890. 



