142 ardeidjE. 



House {Mayo) we saw a large heronry at the end of June 1834, when 

 the squalling kept up through the evening was incessant, and occasion- 

 ally, amid the inharmonious din, cries like those of magpies were 

 heard. When passing Bantry House, county of Cork, in July 1834, a 

 siindar uproar arose from an extensive heronry. From the intelligent 

 gamekeeper here (Geo. Jackson) I learn, that it contained above fifty 

 nests in 1849, and that at Adrigoole Lodge, a summer residence of 

 Lord Bantry's, there is a small colony of eight pair of birds ; — also, 

 that at Castle Mary and Macroom Castle there are heronries, about 

 fifty nests having been reckoned at the latter place in 1848 : these 

 localities are in the county of Cork. My informant mentions another 

 heronry known to him at Frenckpark, county of Roscommon, in which, 

 some years ago, when he lived there, about thirty nests were annually 

 built. He remarks : — " In a number of nests that I examined, I have 

 seen young birds nearly full-fledged, birds not long hatched, and eggs 

 in a state of incubation, all in the same nest. In the breeding season 

 of 1847 two young birds at Adrigoole came down into a yard behind 

 the kitchen, and fed on the entrails of fish, &c. that were thrown out. 

 They were observed by Lord Bantry, who liked their confidence, and 

 ordered them to be fed regularly. In a short time they walked 

 boldly into the kitchen, quite regardless of the people present, and were 

 nowise backward in making free with anything they took a fancy to. 

 The whole of the time they were not in the yard or kitchen, they perched 

 on the top of the house. When his lordship left the place they mingled 

 among the rest, perhaps from not being fed, and were not known from 

 the others the succeeding year." 



" There is a heronry at Maryborough, the seat of Edward Newen- 

 ham, Esq., about two miles from Cork ; and a small one at Coolmore, 

 ten miles from that city. At Prospect Vdla, about two mdes distant 

 from the latter, a pair of herons has built, for the last four years, 

 in the same grove with rooks. They have occupied different trees 

 during that short period."* At Castlemartyr Park, in the same county, 

 there is a heronry. In the county of Waierford these birds build at 

 Dromana ; and at Salter's Bridge, near Lismore, there is an extensive 

 heronry, where amid the dark-foliaged trees the white necks of the 

 birds have been remarked to " show forth like flowers. "f Respecting 



* Mr. Robert Warren, Jan. t Mr. R. Ball. 



