222 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



nests are built in the highest trees, a few feet only between the 

 extreme points of the uppermost branches. The trees are of 

 three kinds, beech, ash, and elm — the first being the favourite. 

 . . . We counted twenty-seven nests. About sixty years ago the 

 number was eleven. In course of time the increase reached 

 thirty-two. But of late years there has been a decrease.' * I 

 inspected this Heronry in 1888 and 1891, and can therefore 

 testify to the accuracy of the remarks just cited. Almost 

 equally well known, at any rate to a former generation, was the 

 now extinct Heronry of Eydal Water. It was not an ancient 

 establishment. Whence the first colonies had migrated can 

 hardly be considered quite certain. Canon Tristram informs 

 me that between the years 1850-55 he was told by the late 

 Earl of Eavensworth that his father had at an earlier period cut 

 down one or two trees in the Heronry at Eavensworth, ' that 

 the herons at once deserted and went the same year to West- 

 moreland, where they bred on some small islets in one of the 

 west country lakes.' It is possible that this was the origin of 

 the Eydal Heronry. At all events, the colony was founded 

 between sixty and seventy years ago, because Parsons and 

 White describe this Heronry as ' recently established ' in the 

 Directory of Cumberland which they published in the year 1829. 



It was a favoured Heronry, one that afforded pleasure to 

 Christopher North, who noticed that f the heronry on the high 

 pine-trees of the only island connects the scene with the ancient 

 park of Eydal.' 2 Miss Martineau recorded her impression of 

 ' the grey bird ' as it appeared * perched upon a tree near its 

 nest, or fishing in the shallows of its island home.' That 

 pleasant fisherman-author, Dr. Davy, wrote that, ' under protec- 

 tion a few herons, here secure from molestation, yearly build 

 their nests in those Scotch firs.' 



The subsequent history of this Heronry is best told in the 

 words of Mr. Jones of Hesketh How, who, writing to Dr. Gough 

 on December 26, 1876, furnished the following statement: 

 1 1 find the Herons have not built upon Eydal for three or four 

 years. When they did build there, they built in rather old 



1 The Heronry of Dallam Tower, p. 15. 



2 Recreations, vol. iii. p. 370. 



