Herons and Border Heronries. By James Smail. 



The country members of the Club must nearly all be familiar 

 •with the appearance and flight of the Heron ; and many must 

 well know its haunts and ways. There is therefore no necessity 

 for a long or exhaustive paper on the natural history of the bird. 



When in full flight, it flies at a great height ; and from the 

 slowness with which the wings are flapped its flight seems slow, 

 whereas it is in reality a rapid flier. When rising from a river 

 bed its flight is decidedly slow, and it continues so until the 

 necessary elevation for rapid flight is reached. The gull tribe, 

 from the bulky solan goose downward, if suddenly started, or if 

 seized, invariably vomit the fish last swallowed, provided, that is, 

 that they had recently been feeding ; but the heron on the other 

 hand when suddenly started on the river's edge, flies off with a 

 wild scream, and invariably as it does so dyes the water with its 

 droppings. Anglers are all aware of this habit of the bird. In- 

 deed there is a vulgar adage in the Borders relative to it. In 

 the nesting season, and in the summer and autumn months, the 

 heron is an active bird, and flits from place to place in search of 

 food over a wide track of country. In bright winter days it 

 travels less ; and several birds at a time may be seen occasionally 

 sunning and preening themselves on the summits of some tall 

 sequestered fir plantation. They wiU sit for hours at a time in 

 such places, with all their feathers bunched-out to the sun. 



The food of herons consists chiefly of fish ; but in times of 

 strait they are not very particular as to what they eat. In frosty 

 weather, when the river pools and lalies aie ice-bound they seek 

 the shallows of running streams, which are seldom frozen over ; 

 and there they feed on water insects, which are always numerous 

 in such places ; and as the water cricket or creeper, produced 

 from the stone fly, is about an inch long, and is abundant in such 

 places, and a species of earth-worm is also numerously to be 

 found under the stones in such shallows, the birds find a fair 

 amount of feeding even in frosty weather, when our smaller 

 birds often suffer severely from want of food. The sea shore 

 also yields much food for the herons ; and they partake occasion- 

 ally of frogs, small toads, lizards, mice, and water rats. 



Several naturalists state that the heron feeds during the night, 

 especially when it is moonlight ; but so far as I have observed 

 no naturalist has stated that he had seen it feeding through the 



