Life in Our 
Heronries. 
(224) THE BIRD WORLD. 
Life in Our Heronries, 
The Aesthetic Bird's Present-de^y Position. 
By HARWOOD BRIERLEY. 
The Heron is, in the first place, a 
Bible bird, being mentioned along with 
the Stork in Deuteronomy xiv. 18. 
Ancient literature has associated both 
the Heron and Stork with the Crane 
and Spoonbill, and of these four aesthetic 
birds, only the first-named is left in 
England to-day. Here, however, he has 
been ranked with the Swan and Pea¬ 
cock as a Royal bird, being protected 
by laws so stringent that, at one time, 
any man found guilty of killing a Heron 
was liable to the penalty of having both 
ears confiscated. Hamlet has a quiet 
reference to the Heron as quarry for 
the Falcons, and, if it were possible for 
falconry to become an everyday sport 
in England again, the Heron would 
doubtless be reinstated at the angler’s 
expense and afterwards duly honoured 
at the table as the Woodcock is now. 
For the present he has received 
anathema in many quarters where he 
reigned supreme for centuries. Although 
the Heron’s eggs are scheduled for pro¬ 
tection, few, if any, stand so little in 
need of it, as only the most daring 
climbers can ever hope to reach them. 
A few English proprietors of Heron 
colonies still profess sufficient pride in 
them to have them guarded. 
In Byegone Bays. 
Yarrell mentions thirty heronries in 
England, including the famed one at 
Parham, in Sussex; but many of these 
have been disestablished because of the 
too heavy levies of fish that have been 
made on local rivers and meres. The 
Herons of Combermere Abbey, in 
Cheshire, were banished for that reason. 
County Durham has lost heronries at 
Ravensworth Castle, at Gainford, and 
Sands. Yorkshire retains two—on Major 
Preston’s estate, Moreby Hall, near 
York, and Mr. W. H. St. Quintin’s 
estate, Scampston Hall, near Malton. 
The Herons Bietary. 
In discussing the destructiveness of 
this bird, writers do not always care to 
discriminate between his common food 
and the luxuries to which he, as an old 
favourite of Royalty and nobles, is en¬ 
titled. The Heron s bill of fare includes 
fish, chicks of aquatic birds, frogs, 
toads, snakes, voles, field mice, shrews, 
snails, slugs, worms, and insects. But 
modern anglers insist that he is less of 
a scavenger than a gourmet, and that, if 
he can get among troutlets, he will 
reject eels, roach, dace, gudgeon, and 
; other coarse fish. Directly a Heron is 
found feeding on trout or samlet, the 
fact is reported to the papers, and a 
hubbub once started on that subject is 
slow to quieten down. It is useless to 
deny that the Heron is fond of game 
fish ; but he takes also a great number 
of eels, frogs, and other vermin. Toads 
appear to be on his list; but if we are 
to accept the testimony of Shakespeare 
and all the poets, the toad is venomous; 
and I cannot but think that the acrid 
and intolerably bitter secretion from a 
toad’s parotid pustules will give con¬ 
vulsions or apoplexy to any bird that 
dares to make a meal of it. 
An Knemy of Trout. 
Alas! Herons may be seen day after 
day striking and swallowing troutlet 
after troutlet, and if not watched they 
will soon clear out a rearing pond. A 
male Heron rarely weighs more than 
3/^ lbs., in spite of his bulky appear¬ 
ance; and, although his neck is exceed¬ 
ingly thin when defeathered, he has a 
knack of stretching his gullet for en- 
gulphing a 2 lb. trout. An adult 
Heron, trapped in Norfolk in 1890, 
promptly disgorged two trout weighing 
2 lbs. and 1^ lbs. The crop of 
another adult, opened after being shot, 
contained no less than 42 young trout. 
Still another one had dined on seven 
