ON SUSSEX HERONRIES. 69 



A few Hawks and Carrion-Crows breed among the Herons ; and the 

 Carrion-Crows are always masters. In the winter time the Pigeons associate 

 with the Herons, which go away to feed upon the Winchelsea and Pevensey 

 marshes. From Pevensey to St, Leonards you observe chiefly marshes full 

 of black cattle. The space between the sea and the firm land is locally 

 termed " the Swatchway ;" and it is on this Swatchway that the Herons get 

 their living. Here you may see " a sege of Herons," to use the language of 

 old writers {cf. Daniel's 'Rural Sports,' vol. iii. p. 314). 



About forty-five years ago, George Noakes, the woodman, who has been 

 there sixty years, observed a strange circumstance : — Just where a small 

 stream or drain ran onto the mud or Swatchway, there were congregated eels 

 without number, on which some twenty Herons were feeding ; he obtained 

 a rake, and raked up a vast many of the former. This place is now silted 

 up ; and to the gradual reduction of the mud I should fancy the decline of this 

 heronry might be traced. 



The woodman considers that these Herons chiefly feed on eels ; but the 

 Rev. Richard Lubbock, in ' Fauna of Norfolk,' p. 137, says : — " The Heron, 

 in Norfolk, gets half his subsistence from the fry of this fish \%. e. the Pike] ; 



island fourteen leagues distant from the mainland to devour the Razorbills {Alca torda) . Again, 

 we find in the 'Times' report of the Arctic expedition, October 31, 1876, as follows: — "The 

 Greenland shore, off which the ship lay, was infested with Owls, whose nests the sailors were very 

 quick in discovering. When the spring set in they laid snares for the old ones, and determined to 

 carry home a large consignment of owlets ; but when the young were all but fully grown, wolves 

 descended on them in nearly every instance, and eat them. This was very strange, as there were 

 not more than a couple of wolves seen in the neighboui'hood of the ship. Robbing the nests was a 

 work of great danger, because the old Owls descended upon the men and darted at their eyes ; and it 

 required no ordinary wariness to keep them off." 



The badger proves himself a member of the Ursidse in the same way ; for jNIr. Frederick 

 Swabey, of Conyton Park, says, in the 'Times,' October 26, 1877, in a letter headed "Anti- 

 badger:" — Badgers "every year take a great many of my domesticated Wild Ducks' eggs. This 

 year they took two of my Wild Ducks off their- nests while sitting. Their tracks were very plain." 



