182 THE BIRDS OF DEVOX. 



Kitley, near Yealmpton, the beautiful seat of the Bastards, 

 rremington, near Barnstaple, on the Yco property, in a fir-plantation. 

 Arlington Court (Miss Chichester), near Barnstaple. 



Pixton Park, near Dulverton (Lord Carnarvon), on fir trees. This heronry 

 ■was formerly situated at Comhe House, an ancient seat of the Syden- 

 ham family in the Parish of Dulverton ; from thence the hirds 

 migrated to some woods on the Exe, on the eastern side of Pixton, 

 but by successive moves approached nearer to their ancient home. 

 There were about ten pairs building in fir trees about 1872 (J. E. 

 Harting, Zool. 1872). This year (1891) we regret to say that the 

 trees at Pixton have been wholly, or in part, cut down. 

 There was formerly a colony near Dawlish, but it no longer exists 

 (Harting, Zool. 1872, p. 32H1). There seems also to have been a herony 

 on I he feign (T. & K., 183(1).' 



There are at least four heronries in Cornwall, and several in Somerset, 

 besides the one we have mentioned above at Pixton Park, and one at 

 Knole, not far from Minehead. The latter is one of the most picturesque 

 heronries we know of. Here there is a cone-shaped wooded hill, on which 

 almost every tree bears one or more nests : and when the birds are eitlier 

 sitting, or are in close attendance upon their young, the heronry may be 

 seen from a considerable distance, and shines silver-grey in the sunlight 

 to anyone looking down upon it from the superior heights of Hunker}'. 

 There are only two or three heronries in Dorset. 



Mr. E. A. S. Elliot writes that on Ajiril 20th, 1881, having permission 

 from the owner, Capt. Hallifax, he went to Halwell "Wood by him- 

 self, and soon found the Herons established on tlie south-west border of 

 the wood in low, bushy oak trees, no nest being more than forty feet from 

 the ground. 'J he trees were easily climbed, and he was soon up the 

 nearest tree Avith a nest ; but was more cautious after his first experience, 

 as it contained nearly full-fledged young, which resented his intrusion by 

 darting their pointed bills at him with startling force and rapidity. The 

 old birds cleared out, and did not attempt to defend their nests, but the 

 young ones were very fierce. He went up to quite thirty nests, most of 

 which contained young in different stages of growth, and took seven eggs 

 from nests where he guessed the eggs would not be hard-set from the fact 

 of their containing onlj- two or three. In some nests he found but two 

 young, and in others four. "We have known a case where a lad has had 

 his hand perforated by the bill of one of the old herons as he was coming 

 down from a tree after robbing the nest. 



Herons are somewhat haul to kill; we once stalked one fishing on the 

 edge of the mud near Powderham, on the Exe, and having fired at him 

 from behind a marsh-bank with a heavy duck-gun, knocked him so com- 

 ])letely head-ovcr-heels into the water that he came up facing the opposite 

 direction to tliat in which he had been standing. "Wishing to secure our 

 l)rize we ran down to the water's edge without stopping to reload, but 

 just as we reached the Heron, and were about to pick him up, he opened 

 his broad wings, and rioing into the air, sailed away apparently uninjured. 



