100 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



both day and night while about the trees indicated that pairing had 

 commenced. By Feb. 1st several pairs had eggs, while others were only 

 building. There are three separate colonies here, in three small woods 

 a few hundred yards apart, separated by pasture and tillage fields (the 

 birds building chiefly on firs, though occasionally on sycamores), and one 

 nest by itself on a sycamore in a grove close to a garden not forty yards 

 from a cottage, where we had excellent opportunities for observing the 

 birds during their building operations. It is strange that this pair of 

 Herons should have selected a site so close to a house, while they had 

 numerous trees to build on in more secluded groves. The temperature in 

 January was very mild, the maximum for the month being 48°, the 

 minimum 37£°.— Robert Warren (Moyview, Ballina). 



[For a note on the early nesting of Herons, see Young, Zool 1884 

 p. 191.— Ed.] 



Heronry near Beckley, Sussex. — Unfortunately, the well-known 

 heronry at Great Sowden's Wood, Brede, can no longer be described as 

 "one of the largest in England " (Borrer, ■ Birds of Sussex,' p. 312 ; see 

 also Yarrell, 'British Birds,' 4th ed. vol. iv. p. 167; and Rowley, Orn. 

 Misc. vol. iii. p. 65, where will be found two pictures of this heronry), 

 insomuch as this year it is entirely deserted, not a single pair having 

 returned to breed. In 1840, 400 nests might be counted, while twenty 

 years later scarcely '200 remained (vide letter from owner, Mr. E. Frewin, 

 to Dr. Arnold, 'Sussex Archaeological Collections,' vol. xxvii. p. 114)! 

 During the last few years the numbers have steadily decreased, a con- 

 sequence, I believe, of the erosion of some of the timber. It is, however, 

 with no little gratification that I am able to report that the birds have' 

 established a settlement in Alder Shaw, the property of Capt. Pennifather 

 Alder Shaw is an oak wood of eight acres, situated north-east of the' 

 Sowden wood, and near the village of Beckley. On March 1st the 

 owner and I counted seventeen nests, fifteen of which were at the time 

 occupied, the birds presumably performing the duty of incubation. The 

 Herons arrived unusually early this year, viz. on Jan. 28th, which is quite 

 three weeks earlier than last year. The settlement (of which this is, I 

 believe, the first notice appearing in print) was commenced in 1892, when 

 three pairs migrated from Great Sowden's Wood. By 1895 this number 

 was increased to fourteen, and I am told that at least a hundred young 

 were safely reared. The nests are placed in the tops of oaks, at a height 

 of thirty to forty feet. Happily, Capt. Pennifather takes great interest in 

 the colony. My friend Mr. Thomas Parkin informs me that it is likely that 

 some of the Herons have migrated to Iden Wood, near Rye. If this 

 surmise be correct, an old heronry is revisited, for "Edward I. had one in 

 his manor of Iden, which he reserved to the crown, when, in 1297 he 

 granted that manor to Robert Panlyn, one of the barons of Winchelsea,' for 



