OF SELBORNE. 115 



Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do cer- 

 tainly not forsake them against winter, our suspicions 

 that those which visit this neighbourhood about Michael- 

 mas are not English birds, but driven from the more 

 northern parts of Europe by the frosts, are still more 

 reasonable ; and it will be worth your pains to endea- 

 vour to trace from whence they come, and to inquire 

 why they make so very short a stay. 



In your account of your error with regard to the two 

 species of herons, you incidentally gave me "great enter- 

 tainment in your description of the heronry at Cressi 

 Hall ; which is a curiosity I never could manage to see. 

 Fourscore nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity 

 which I would ride half as many miles to have a sight 

 of. Pray be sure to tell me in your next whose seat 

 Cressi Hall is, and near what town it lies 3 . I have 

 often thought that those vast extents of fens have 

 never been sufficiently explored. If half a dozen gen- 

 tlemen, furnished with a good strength of water-spaniels, 

 were to beat them over for a week, they would certainly 

 find more species. 



3 Cressi Hall is near Spalding, in Lincolnshire. 



[Cressi Hall was the seat of a branch of the very ancient family of 

 Heron. Its position in the fens was less suited to the human race than 

 to the birds who were probably encouraged there for namesake, with a 

 feeling similar to that which actuated the town of Berne, during the 

 time that it deemed it important to be always possessed of bears. The 

 owner, at the period when Pennant visited it, left it away from the Lin- 

 colnshire branch of the family to a branch which had long been settled 

 in Scotland ; and about forty years ago the property was sold. The 

 house was soon afterwards burnt down by accident. It was a large 

 modern house, with a small chapel attached to it ; but was not of sufficient 

 consequence to attract much notice : the arms of the family were carved 

 in stone upon the front of the chapel. The motto probably was also 

 there, connecting, like the heronry, the bird with the family that bears its 

 name, and punningly declaring, in the words ardua petit ardea, the soar- 

 ing propensities of both. 



Sir Robert Heron informs me that about sixty years ago, which must 

 have been almost immediately after Pennant's visit, the trees of the 

 heronry were cut down. When Sir Robert visited the place forty -eight 

 years ago there were still many disconsolate herons about, mourning the 

 desolation of their city. In the year 1819, when he was again in the 

 neighbourhood, he saw none of the race remaining. E. T. B.] 



