226 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
at sight because of its depredations. Mr. J. J. Armistead 
writes : "It frequents the smallest trout streams at the 
time trout are spawning, and makes havoc amongst them. 
I have shot them at my trout ponds close to the house, 
and only a few weeks ago I missed several thousand 
yearhng trout from a nursery pool, and set three or four 
traps. I next morning had the thief, which proved to be 
one of these birds."* Herons were popularly supposed 
to shake scales from their bodies to attract trout, and the 
grease obtained by cooking one of these birds was eagerly 
sought after as an ingredient of the pastes used by 
bait-fishers. wr, . 
On the coast many are the stalks after wild-fowl that 
the Heron spoils, and I once saw a pack of Blackcock 
flushed by one of these birds. As a destroyer of young 
Wild-Duck, this species becomes obnoxious to the game- 
keeper, and it is fortunate for those who would miss the 
Heron as a fitting ornament to our lochs and streams, 
that they are well able to look after their own safety. 
The dietary of this species is mainly supphed by frogs, 
eels, mice, etc., and Mr. Hugh Mackay states " of the con- 
tents of thirty-five Herons' stomachs that I have examined 
in two years, I have only found eight which contained trout ; 
the remaining twenty-seven contained the semi-digested 
portions of rats, mice, frogs, eels, fresh-water snails, beetles, 
and the fresh-water shrimps (Gammarus fulex). t During 
the vole-plague of 1891-1893 these birds proved most 
useful and " Mabie Moss " writes : That the common 
Heron is a great destroyer of water-rats is pretty well 
known The bird has a queer uncanny look about it 
when holding a rat crosswise in his bill, stretching out 
its neck meanwhile in strange contortions, and battering 
the life out of the helpless rodent ere it finally souses 
it in the water preparatory to bolting it whole. % In 
* Naturalist, 1886, p. 71. 
t Dumfries Courier and Herald, February 16th, 1895. 
X Op. cit.. May 1st, 1890. 
