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carefully editing. Many interesting particulars respecting the heronries now in existence have 

 been sent to me ; but my space will not permit of publishing these in detail. It would appear as 

 if in many places the Herons had, chiefly owing to persecution, forsaken their breeding-haunts 

 and taken possession of others ; thus, for instance, Mr. F. Nicholson informs me that there are 

 at present five heronries in existence in Cheshire, and four have ceased to exist. The five 

 referred to by Mr. Nicholson are at Aston Hall, near Frodsham ; Burton Hall, on the Dee ; 

 Eaton Hall, near Chester ; Hooton, on the Mersey ; and Tab'ley Park. Of these only one is 

 included amongst the five enumerated by Yarrell as then existing in Cheshire. 



Mr. Cecil Smith informs me that he has seen Herons on the Channel Islands, which must 

 have come either from the French coast or perhaps from the heronry on the Dart, in Devonshire ; 

 and he adds that in his own county, Somersetshire, the two heronries referred to by Yarrell at 

 Picton and at Brockley woods are still in existence. Mr. Stevenson, in his work on the birds of 

 Norfolk, gives most interesting details respecting the heronries now in existence in Norfolk, to 

 which I may refer those of my readers who desire more detailed information than I am able to 

 give. In Scotland the present species, Mr. Robert Gray writes, " is abundant in all the western 

 counties, and also throughout the Long Island, or Outer Hebrides. It is equally distributed 

 over the inner group of islands, where there are several, heronries. On the mainland these 

 interesting nurseries occur at intervals from the north-west of Sutherland to Wigtownshire. In 

 many of the wilder districts, where trees are either of stunted growth, or entirely absent, the 

 sites selected are very different from those one is accustomed to see in cultivated localities. 

 Mr. Colin M'Vean has sent me word that he lately visited one of the largest heronries he ever 

 saw; it was on the Point of Ardnamurchan, where the rocks are tolerably steep and covered 

 with ivy and shrubs, among which the Herons had built their nests." 



In Ireland it is, according to Thompson, particularly numerous, owing to the large proportion 

 of suitable country where rivers, lakes, or marshes are scattered about. It has twice been 

 recorded from Greenland ; and Professor Eeinhardt, referring to these occurrences, writes (Ibis, 

 1861, p. 9) as follows: — "The common Heron was admitted in the 'Fauna Grcenlandica ' upon 

 the authority of the missionary Matthseus Stach, who said that he had seen such a bird on the 

 27th of August, 1765. Misunderstanding the words of Fabricius, Holboll in his memoir erased 

 the bird (never since observed) from the. Greenland avifauna. But in 1856 a young Heron was 

 found dead near Nenortalik, and sent to the Eoyal Museum ; and this occurrence not only gives 

 the species a claim to be enumerated here, but makes it not unlikely that the old missionary 

 may have been right." Mr. Benzon informs me that it has been met with in Iceland, where it 

 is a rare straggler, and its presence is supposed by the natives to forebode a good fish-season. 

 Captain Feilden says that it occasionally straggles to the Fseroes, and he saw one when crossing 

 the Skuoe fjord on the 24th May. An old male was shot near Saxen on the 3rd June, 1864; 

 Wolley mentions having seen a single example in June 1849; and M filler records them as not 

 uncommon stragglers. In Scandinavia it is not uncommon in the south, but becomes much rarer 

 towards the northern portions of the country, and has not been observed north of Lofoten, in 

 68° N. lat. Mr. E. Collett informs me that "it breeds in colonies on the west coast, but not iu 

 the interior, as far as Nordland, but is scattered only sparingly here and there, except near the 

 coasts of Stavanger and Bergen Stifts, where considerable numbers breed. In the interior 



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