A BIRD- LOVED SUBURB. 
205 
Looking after their old nests in spring, like the rooks, are 
those other life-paired birds, the stately herons. Few people 
seem to know that there is in Richmond Park a fine heronry. 
The nests are among evergreen trees in a secluded enclosure ; 
and the herons, at breeding time, sit in stately fashion, on or 
beside their nests ; thus, unless the birds spread their large 
wings for flight, it is often difficult to see them. An occasional 
cry from an unobserved heron sometimes startles a visitor, 
ignorant of what the sound comes from. The motions of the 
herons in the air are full of stateliness and grace. Sometimes 
we see them mounting in large spirals to a great height ; but 
more often they may be observed moving slowly home across 
the Thames, with neck drawn back and legs stretched at full 
length behind, to act as a sort of rudder. An ardent ornithologist 
records how that he once got inside the enclosure where the 
heronry stands, saw some young birds on the ground running 
towards the lake ; and he describes the tumult of agitation that 
took place overhead as he disturbed the herons from their nests, 
and witnessed the large-winged birds flying about in anxious 
alarm, among the tree-tops. A feat of trespass like this, though 
detailed in a London weekly journal, is, I presume, rarely 
attempted. But one can easily imagine what the sport of 
hawking must have been in old times, with a heron for the 
quarry. Some years ago the herons left their usual nesting- 
place for a few years, and built on a large oak, a little way 
off, inside the edge of the Isabella Plantation ; and there, 
before the leaves came out, the nests could be seen with 
great ease. But the birds have now all got back to the old 
heronry. 
Next in interest to the herons come the swans. Standing 
on the eminence by White Lodge, we may sometimes see half- 
a-dozen swans sailing in line aloft towards the Pen Ponds or 
Lakes, with necks outstretched to full length and a peculiar 
utterance constantly going on as they wing their way through 
the air. At other times, we may see them swimming about one 
of the lakes, and in June and July it is pleasant to watch a pair 
carefully tending and guarding their cygnets near the islet on 
the upper lake, while a moorhen swims outside with three 
pretty little chicks. In July of this year (1894), swans 
were quietly swimming about with seven cygnets, forming quite 
a large family-party, as if they were one brood. Seeing that in 
general, two or three cygnets are all that a brood contains, it 
would seem that two or more broods must, in this family, have 
been here somehow united. Some large fish, presumably pike, 
were then at times sporting like porpoises in both lakes. 
Richniond-on-Thames. W. J C. Miller. 
{To he concluded next month.) 
