“The fourth heron fetched a wide circle, and so descended into the wood. Two more passed on over the valley—altogether six herons in about a quarter of an hour. They intended, no doubt, to wait in the trees till it was dusky, and then to go down and fish in the wood. Herons are here called cranes, and heronries are craneries. (This confusion between the heron and the crane exists in most parts of Ireland.) “A determined sportsman who used to eat every heron he could shoot, in revenge for their ravages among the trout, at last became suspicious, and, examining one, found in it the remains of a rat and of a toad, after which he did not eat any more herons. Another sportsman found a heron in the very act of gulping down a good sized trout, which stuck in the gullet. He shot the heron and got the trout, which was not at all injured, only marked at each side where the beak had cut it. The fish was secured and eaten.” I can corroborate the accuracy as well as the graphic wording of the above description. When I was living at Belvedere, in Kent, I used nearly every evening to see herons flying northwards. I think that they were making for the Essex marshes. They always flew at a very great height, and might have escaped observation but for the loud, harsh croak which they uttered at intervals, and which has been so well described by the monosyllable “caak.” As to their mode of settling on a tree, I have often watched the herons of Walton Hall, where they were so tame that they would allow themselves to be approached quite closely. When settling, they lower themselves gently until their feet are upon the branch. They then keep up a slight flapping of the wings until they are fairly settled. An idea is prevalent in many parts of England that when the heron sits on its nest, its long legs hang down on either side. Nothing can be more absurd. The heron can double up its legs as is usual among birds, and sits on its nest as easily as if it were a rook, or any other short-legged bird. In many respects the heron much resembles the rook in its manner of nesting. The nest is placed in the topmost branches of a lofty tree, and is little more than a mere platform of small sticks. Being a larger bird than the rook, the heron requires a larger nest, and on an average the diameter of a nest is about three feet. Like the rook, the heron is gregarious in its nesting, a solitary heron’s nest being unknown. In their modes of feeding, however, the two birds utterly differ from each other, the heron seeking its food alone, while the rook feeds in company, always placing a sentinel on some elevated spot for the purpose of giving alarm at the approach of danger.