106 
THE HERON. 
two or three broad ditches containing but little water. 
Brambles and elder bushes form the underwood and surround¬ 
ings. Borne little time back a strong gale blew down a large 
number of trees in close proximity to the Heronry, leaving 
a large open space, which however, has recently been 
replanted, and the birds still cling to their accustomed 
haunts. The nests of the birds breeding in this locality are 
built in the tops of tall trees, some forty or fifty feet high, 
and though something like thirty or forty birds occupy the 
wood during the breeding season, since I have known the 
Heronry I have never seen more than nine nests at one time. 
Year after year I have noticed four or five nests left incom¬ 
plete, for what reason I cannot say; but for its occurring so 
regularly I should have put it down to the death of one of 
the old birds, as, in a neighbourhood like Middleton, some 
one or other is always prowling about with a gun. Chambers, 
the gamekeeper of the estate, tells me that a little nest¬ 
building is done at intervals through the summer, but I have 
never witnessed it after the usual time. 
All through the winter two or three Herons remain at 
Middleton, and, scouring the district round in search of food 
during the day, they always return home for the night. Towards 
the end of February a large accession to the winter residents 
is made by the arrival of the first migratory flock. A second 
flock arrives a week or so later, and not unfrequently a third 
later still. Nest-building is begun soon after the arrival of 
the first dock, but very little real work is then done, most of 
the time being spent in fighting and the systematic robbery 
of each other’s materials; these qualities seem highly 
developed at this season, and are scarcely to be surpassed 
even by the Rook. Frequently high winds retard building 
operations, the demolition of a half finished nest being not at all 
a rare occurrence; but when the birds set to in earnest, two or 
three days suffice to complete a massive structure. Like 
the Rook, the Heron repairs the ruins of the old nest and 
occupies the same site for years. The eggs are laid in the 
middle of March and a month later the young are hatched. 
The Herons were very wild during my first visits to the 
Heronry. A harsh cry, and the loud dap of their large 
wings striking the smaller branches of the trees on which 
they were reposing, the moment I entered the wood, showed 
that they were on the alert, and I seldom saw them again 
till after going some distance from the spot. One bird, but 
occasionally more, usually acted as scout to the colony, and 
the whole time I was there it sailed round and round, 
occasionally uttering a harsh cry. I always carried a powerful 
