BIRDS 223 



Scotch and silver firs of late years ; but I am told that some 

 twenty years ago they built in other kinds of trees, oaks 

 especially. And when at one time they were disturbed at 

 building time by some people living at Nab Cottage, they left 

 the island and built in larch trees, in a plantation in the 

 side of Loughrigg, west of the Lake. I well remember three 

 or four nests a year within the last fifteen years, but I 

 understand they were much more abundant about twenty 

 years ago. The birds often come over to feed, and are seen 

 about the rivers and the lake ; but they have, I fear, altogether 

 ceased to build there.' 1 



Until quite recently, an unrecorded colony of ten or twelve 

 pairs of Herons nested in Roudsea "Wood, shifting their quarters 

 in 1886, in consequence of some of the trees in which they 

 built being cut down. Whither they migrated I have not been 

 able to learn; but, as we saw several young Herons on Roudsea 

 Moss in the summer of 1891, a new nursery must exist in the 

 neighbourhood. Another unrecorded Lancashire Heronry is 

 that of Rusland, regarding which Mr. 0. F. Archibald wrote to me 

 in April 1890: ' There is an old established Heronry in the 

 Rusland valley, not on our land but adjoining ; to the best of 

 my belief there are about 8-10 nests annually; they used to 

 build in very tall larches. When these were cut down, they 

 migrated to some neighbouring Scotch firs, where they are inac- 

 cessible. But on April 5th I had a great treat. I heard a good 

 deal of " talking " going on in some other Scotch firs, at some 

 considerable distance from the Heronry, and led thereby I dis- 

 covered that a solitary pair were breeding there. I climbed up 

 and inspected the eggs, three, slightly incubated. It was a great 

 treat to see the big blue eggs on the great platform of sticks 

 lying on a cradle of hay, about the size of a dinner plate ; the 

 old birds kept to the same place for the next few days, when I 

 left home.' In the following October Mr. Archibald introduced 

 me to the Rusland Heronry. The ground beneath the nests 

 was strewn with fragments of broken shells, showing that most 

 of the young had hatched out safely. At Whittington, not very 

 far from Kirkby-Lonsdale, there exists a Heronry, which Mr. 

 1 The Heronry at Dallam Tower, p. 13. 



