Birds. 2571 



severing in this operation for some minutes, he gradually relaxed his hold, and half 

 fluttering, half tumbling through the horizontal branches of the tree beneath me, at 

 last reached the ground in safety. 



" I had now leisure to examine the nest, the lower and external portions of which 

 were composed of sticks from the larch and fir, the materials becoming finer towards 

 the interior, which was lined throughout with very thin birch twigs, closely matted 

 together. It was much wider than that of the rook, and shallower in proportion, 

 being, as nearly as I could guess, about four feet in diameter, and some of those in 

 the neighbouring trees, when viewed from beneath, seemed even larger than this. 



" The two dead birds appeared to have perished about a week before, probably 

 owing to the unusual severity of the weather during the past month. Their decom- 

 posing bodies did not seem to have incommoded the old birds, as they might easily 

 have removed the annoyance, if inclined to do so, by throwing them out of the shallow 

 nest, in the interior of which I found nothing else, except the back-bones of two or 

 three fish, which might have originally weighed half a pound each. 



" My operations having for the present disturbed the elder members of the heronry, 

 who seemed unwilling to return to the trees while I remained there, I left the place 

 a couple of hours, and then cautiously retracing my steps, fastened my horse to a 

 shrub at some distance, and taking off my shooting coat, from one of the capacious 

 pockets of which the head and neck of the living heron protruded, I slung my spy- 

 glass over my neck, and as silently as possible ascended a Scotch fir which commanded 

 from its upper branches a good view of a large nest in a neighbouring tree. The ever- 

 green boughs, moreover, were so well clothed with leaves that I found less difficulty 

 than I had expected in concealing myself, but notwithstanding all my care the old 

 birds had taken the alarm when I began to climb, and I had to wait a long time 

 before either of them returned. I had, however, a good opportunity of examining 

 with my glass the grotesque inhabitants of the nest : they were three in number, ap- 

 peared to be not more than a week or ten days old, and were partly clothed with a 

 hairy down, resembling hemp or flax in colour and appearance ; their heavy heads, 

 crowned with tufts of this, and raised occasionally as they opened their enormous 

 mouths in expectation of food, and then suddenly dropped again ; their great staring 

 eyes, writhing necks, and naked bodies ; altogether contributed to render their appear- 

 ance irresistibly ludicrous : but their excitement seemed to have reached its utmost 

 when one of the old birds, which flapped round the nest for some time, at last pre- 

 pared to alight, gradually allowing his outstretched legs to fall from the horizontal to 

 the perpendicular, and working his wings with increased violence and rapidity until 

 he found a firm footing on the margin of the nest, when, opening his beak, he imme- 

 diately disgorged several small eels, which were greedily devoured by the three young 

 birds. The eels appeared to be very small ; but I had ere long an opportunity of 

 observing that even when a fish is of a tolerable size, the heron contrives to conceal it 

 within the elastic pouch to which, in so many birds, the dilatable skin of the throat 

 can be readily converted ; for many minutes had not elapsed before I saw an old 

 heron alight on a more distant tree, and opening his mouth, drop a fish, which 

 appeared to be above half a pound weight, into the bottom of his nest. I had, it is 

 true, only a passing glimpse of it as it fell, and therefore at the moment could make 

 only a rough guess at its weight and species, but it appeared to be a bream, or large 

 roach, and of such a shape and size as I should scarcely have supposed to have been 

 stowed away within that graceful neck, if I had not been aware, from former observa- 



