The herons have just returned to the heronry after an absence of many months. At the end of September the old and young birds flew off together, and dispersed themselves over the low-lying mosses which margin the estuary of the river. Here they stayed during the winter, feeding but little in the bay, but making long flights either to the quiet tarns among the hills or to the neighbouring trout streams. Like the poacher, the heron pursues its silent trade by night, and loves the moonlit ones best. Now that the birds are breeding, their habit and daily routine are ordered quite otherwise than during the winter months. This year they returned to nest during the last week of March, and immediately sought out the trees in the most elevated part of the wood. By the middle of April but few nests remained unfinished, while the majority contained eggs. The trees selected for the huge burdens of sticks are oak, ash, elm, and silver firs; and the nests themselves are flat platforms with just the slightest depression for the pale green eggs. Close by the home of the herons is a rookery; and although it has not always been so, the two species now dwell together in perfect amity. Nests of the herons and of their sable companions are not unfrequently found in the same tree. Any threatened invasion of the two colonies of brooding birds produces a very different result on their respective denizens. The rooks get off their nests and circle, crying and cawing, until the disturber has vanished; the herons fly silently and straight away. During a stormy spring like the present[6] many of the eggs are blown from the nest and destroyed--a fate which often befalls the young herons themselves in autumn. Now that the birds are breeding it is easy to see by the aid of a binocular that they sit upon their nests with their legs under them, and not (as was once supposed) either pushed through the sticks or thrust behind them. In its domestic relations the heron is both amicable and honest. If a nest is blown down the birds go to work in the precincts of the rookery, but never touch the rooks' sticks. The heron's nest is a rude, wide-spreading platform constructed of beech-twigs, and not lined with wool as generally stated, but with the fine shoots of the larch. The appearance is that of a ringdove's nest on a large scale, and so open in texture that the sitting bird or eggs may be seen through the foundation. The heron breeds both early and late, and has often three or four broods in a season. At this time they are rarely seen fishing in the bay, and seem to prefer round fish upon which to feed their young, probably on account of the narrowness of gape and swallow. To obtain the requisite food the herons move off at evening to the quiet tarns and streams which abound in trout and eels. As the young birds come to maturity they are driven from the nest, and in a few days a new clutch of eggs is laid. The incubation of these is performed by both parents, one