110 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Mr. T. W. Fitzwilliam, and Colonel C. I. Strong, of 

 Thorpe Hall, near Peterborough. There has for 

 many years existed a tradition that the Herons first 

 nested at Milton in the year that Sir Eobert Heron 

 was first elected to Parliament as Member for Peter- 

 borough, in reply to my enquiries into the authen- 

 ticity of this story, both Lady Lyveden and Lord 

 Fitzwilliam informed me that they have reasons for 

 believing that it is perfectly true, and that the year 

 of Sir Robert's return for Peterborough was 1819 ; in 

 that year one pair nested on an island in a piece of 

 water in the pleasure-grounds, at no great distance 

 from the house at Milton, and that they have steadily 

 increased in numbers in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood, though they have left their original quarters 

 for many years past, owing to the death of the firs 

 and other trees on the island. They are now estab- 

 lished in a wood at about a mile from the first 

 head-quarters, and Lord Fitzwilliam informs me that 

 this is the third location since their first advent to 

 Milton. Mr. T. W. Fitzwilliam, writing to me on 

 March 18, 1887, states : — " The Herons are about as 

 numerous as usual, about 93 nests, but I do not 

 think that all have built yet " : in 1889 I heard from 

 Colonel Strong that there were about 120 "service- 

 able " nests ; this is confirmed to a certain extent by 

 Lord Fitzwilliam, who told me that he was informed 

 that there were then " as many as 160 nests, probably 

 not all occupied." Another Heronry formerly existed 

 in our county on the property of the late Mr. Thomas 

 Tryon, of Bulwick, whose son, Mr. Richard Tryon, 

 tells me that here again the Herons shifted their 

 quarters from a covert known as the Lodge Coppice, 

 in the parish of Harringworth, to Mavis Wood, in the 



