NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



enough when put to it, ever made any attempt to drive 

 the rooks away from the same plantation. 



By a statute of Henry VI I. 's reign a fine of ioj-. was 

 laid upon any person taking the young of these birds 

 from the nest, and 6s. 8d. for any person killing a 

 heron out of his own grounds, except by hawking or 

 by the long bow. By later enactments the penalty for 

 taking eggs or the young was increased to 20^-., or 

 three months' imprisonment. I am not aware that 

 these Acts have ever been repealed, but in any case 

 herons are more or less protected by the Wild Birds 

 Protection Acts of more recent times. 



In Britain, as a rule, the grey heron builds in tall 

 trees. Colonel Montagu, however, mentions having 

 seen a heronry on a small island in a lake in the north 

 of Scotland, where "there was only one scrubby oak 

 tree, which not being sufficient to contain all the nests, 

 many were placed on the ground." In South Africa, 

 where our English heron is also found, these birds have 

 been known to make their nests in company on tufts of 

 grass and rushes in marshy places, sometimes sur- 

 rounded by water. 



Among provincial and local names for this bird are 

 hern, heronshaw, crane (still the common Irish 

 designation), heronswegh, hegrie or skiphegrie, and 

 long-necked heron. The term " mollyern " I have 

 mentioned in another chapter. 



There is not a more interesting spectacle at spring- 

 time upon an English countryside than that obtained 

 by the quiet watcher of a heronry during the breeding 

 season. Not far from the Pevensey Marshes there is 

 one of these ancient abiding-places, where herons can 

 be observed pretty closely. The adjacent marshes 

 between the heronry and the sea, full as they are of 

 dykes and sluggish streams, swarming with eels, offer 



52 



