HERON 151 
said to have been taken by boys at Douglas Head. Fora 
number of years a party of Herons has frequented the 
grounds at Kirby, especially a small clump of firs near the 
river, and it was suspected that nesting had taken place at 
least one year in a tree now destroyed, but Mr. Drinkwater 
thinks that this was not the case, and in 1904 the birds 
deserted the spot in the spring. 
The only colony of which until recently I was able to 
obtain information existed up to some twenty years ago 
at Coan Shellagh, a picturesque spot between Fleshwick 
and Dalby. The place is close to the ravine of Lag ny 
Keilley, which leads almost from the summit of Cronk ny 
Irey Lhaa to the sea, and has in its depths, far from any 
habitation, the scanty remains of a primitive chapel and 
burial-ground. The coast around is broken by beautiful 
caverns, and these and the less overhung hollows are 
rich with a luxuriant vegetation—bramble, ivy, grass, sea- 
campion, scurvy grass, hemp agrimony in immense clumps 
of a man’s height, richly blooming honeysuckle, osmunda, 
hart’s-tongue, and lady fern. Here, among willow bushes 
just at the verge of the precipice, which, though at that point 
steep, is not very high, the nests, not numerous, are said to 
have been situated. Wedo not know how or exactly when 
this colony was broken up. 
Mr. William Kerruish tells me that another station existed 
on the coast. between Laxey and Dhoon, the nests being 
placed in clusters of ivy on a dangerous cliff. He thinks 
he saw this colony not more than twenty years ago. 
On 20th March 1885 Mr. Clyne notes that ‘the Herons 
which wintered in this neighbourhood (Langness) departed,’ 
and observes that ‘five appeared on 2nd August of the same 
year.’ 
The late Mr. Kinvig, of Castletown, had, as noted by Mr. 
Kermode, a white specimen, with the pinion feathers and 
