DECAY OF CERTAIN SPECIES. 117 
more advanced than many others. They well deserved the care of 
man. All of them possessed merits of diverse originality. The social 
instinct of the cranes, and their various imitative talent, rendered 
them amusing and agreeable. The joviality of the pelican, and his 
joyous humour; the tenderness of the goose, and his strong faculty of 
attachment; and, finally, the good disposition of the storks, their piety 
towards their aged parents, contirmed by so many witnesses, formed 
between this world and our own firm ties of sympathy, which human 
levity ought not barbarously to have rent asunder, 
(Nore.—Heronries in England. The heron, though rare in England. is certainly not so 
searce as he seems to be in France, perhaps hecause it is against the laws of sport to hunt 
him. In some districts the man who shot a heron would be regarded with as much scorn 
as if he had killed a fox. He is a very rapacious bird. and it is asserted that, on an average, 
he will destroy daily half a hundred small roach and dace, 
There is a fine heronry at Cobham, near Gravesend, in Kent, the seat of the Earl of 
Darnley. Another, in Great Sowdens Wood, on the Rye road, one mile from Udimere, in 
Sussex, contains fully four hnndred nests. That at Parham, the Hon. R. Curzon’s 
beautiful seat has quite a history. 
