194 
THE BIRDS OF HAMPSHIRE. 
waves on the surface of the pond. In the tops of the trees 
the great masses of the nests swayed in the wind, but not 
a sign of their being occupied — no hurried flapping away 
of huge birds, or any warning cry to betray their presence. 
Only out across the pond a flight of them was wheeling 
and soaring over the surface like a flock of gigantic gulls, 
and not until the watcher had waited for some time in con- 
cealment did one or two of the birds return to reconnoitre, 
floating in the air above the nests and gazing downwards 
in search of the disturber of their solitude, then perching 
hesitatingly on the topmost boughs of the tree before 
returning to their nest ; but above all the intense silence 
of the great wary birds was most remarkable. The Hon. 
John Scott-Montagu informs us that they have nested here 
ever since he can remember, but in former years there was 
also another heronry about two miles below Beaulieu, on 
the east side of the river, in Sims' Wood. 
There were in 1904 some thirty pairs of birds nesting 
in one of the colonies on Sowley Pond, and as many as 
four nests were counted in some of the trees. 
SOMERLEY. 
The largest heronry now in the New Forest district 
is probably that on the Earl of Normanton's estate at 
Somerley, near Ringwood, where the nests are built in 
Scotch firs in the park ; Lord Normanton kindly informs 
us that there were about sixty nests in 1904, but the 
date of their first commencing to nest there is not known, 
at any rate they have nested there quite thirty-five years. 
HERON COURT. 
In former times a famous heronry existed at Heron 
Court, but this has now been extinct for some years ; Lord 
