141 AUDEIM. 



thirty to fifty nests. At Marino, the seat of Lord Charlemont, on the 

 borders of Dublin Bay, is an infant colony, first noticed by my in- 

 formant in 1 844, when the nests were but three in number : — in the 

 next year, five ; and in the third, ten appeared. At Ballyward 

 (Wicklow) there is a very ancient one; which contained, in 1846, 

 about fifty nests.* 



Although the " discord of sounds " from a heronry certainly cannot 

 be called " sweet," I do not know a more interesting feature in a 

 demesne than a finely situated one ; as, for instance, that in Hillsborough 

 Park. We find the heronry amid scenery of the most various character, 

 oftenest perhaps in the finely-wooded and cultivated park, having 

 the adjunct of a spacious lake. One in a very different scene, in the 

 island of Islay, will be mentioned ; but the most interesting that has 

 in any way come under my notice is on a wooded island (under two 

 English acres in extent ; the trees thirty to fifty feet in height), in 

 Lough Athry — a lake about a mile in length — situated perhaps ten miles 

 to the south-east of Clifden, county of Galway. So charming was this 

 scene, that it was committed to the portfolios of my friend Bobert 

 Callwell, Esq., and Dr. Petrie, during a tour undertaken a few years ago 

 in search of the picturesque in Connemara. Dr. Petrie made an ex- 

 quisite water-colour drawing of it (38 by 26 inches), which appeared in 

 the Exhibition of the Boyal Hibernian Academy for 1846, under the 

 attractive and appropriate title of " The Home of the Heron." The 

 locality is known to the people of the district by the prosaic name of 

 " Crane Island." 



Immediately beyond an admirable foreground, faithfully representing 

 nature, the lake fills up the picture from side to side, and the wooded 

 island appears with some herons just above the trees, while others are 

 sailing towards it on the bosom of the air from the far distance ; every 

 individual, of which there are above thirty in number, being drawn to 

 the life. At the farther side of the lake is a sublime rocky defile, the 

 termination of which is but dimly seen through the clouds enveloping 

 the mountains. Herons are the only living objects represented in the 

 drawing. . In addition to those already mentioned as on wing, a solitary 

 bird stands in an attitude similar to the one so admirably portrayed by 

 Bewick, at the nearer side of the lake. A heron is said to have been 



* Mr. Robert Callwell of Dublin. 



