Gilbert White to Mr. Pennant, "in your
description of the heronry at Cressy Hall, which
is a curiosity I could never manage to see. Four-
score nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity
which I would ride half as many miles to have a
sight of." But the herony of Cressy Hall, near
Spalding, in Lincolnshire, which thus excited the
admiration of Pennant and Gilbert White, has
long been dispersed; for, a very little molestation
suffices to cause the migration of a colony of
herons.

Mr. Knox, in his interesting Ornithological
Rambles in Sussex, illustrates this fact by the
history of the heronry at Parham. Lord
Leicester's steward brought them from Coity
Castle in Wales to Penshurst in Kent, the
seat of Lord de Lisle in the time of James
the First. Two hundred years afterwards a
colony of them migrated from Penshurst to
Michelgrove, a distance of about seventy miles.
The house at Michelgrove being pulled down, and
one or two of the trees containing their nests
felled, the herons began immediately but
gradually to migrate from Michelgrove to Parham,
a distance of only eight miles. Three seasons
elapsed before all the herons had found their
way over the downs to the fir woods of Parham.

Herons and rooks agree in building their nests
on trees, and out of this identity of instinct
issue hereditary wars. When the colony of
herons first tried to establish themselves at
Parham they selected the trees now called the
"rookery" to build their nests in, but they were
driven away, after a few days' fighting, by the
rooks. Victory has, it appears, on different
occasions taken different sides. Mr. Knox, when
perched on the top of a Scotch fir at Parham,
witnessed a curious chase (it could not be called
a combat) between a rook and a heron. Returning
from a foraging expedition in the neighbouring
brooks, the heron was obliged to fly directly
over the rookery, or take a circuitous route to
avoid it. He chose the less prudent and bolder
alternative, but he had hardly appeared above
the tops of the trees of the rookery before an
old black warrior attacked him furiously. He
followed him even within the precincts of the
heronry, buffeting him vigorously, while, far
from making any resistance, the heron screamed
with terror, and threw himself into odd attitudes
of pain and distress. Bewick mentions an
instance in which hostilities were carried on
between a colony of rooks and a colony of herons
for two successive seasons; and after some of
the herons and many of the rooks had been
killed, the herons remained in possession of the
coveted trees. Mr. Edward Jesse says: "One
of the finest heronries we now have is, perhaps,
the one in Windsor Great Park, taking into
account the number of the nests and the noble
and great height of the trees on which they are
built. I once witnessed at this heronry an
interesting fight between a pair of ravens and some
of the herons. It was early in the spring, and
the former birds evidently wanted to take
possession of one of the nests of the latter, who,
however, did not appear to wish for so dangerous
a neighbour. The fight was continued in the air
for a length of time, but in. the end the herons
had the advantage and beat off the ravens." It
is, perhaps, in the battles of ravens and herons
as in those of men, that thrice is he armed who
has his quarrel just.

An esteemed correspondent has enabled me
to add a new feature to this old history of the
immemorial feuds of the rooks and the herons.
"Do you know," he asked me, "the little
heronry at Windmill Hill? The birds have two
distinct settlements the one near the house
(the seat of Mr. Curtis, M.P.), and the other in
a corner about a quarter of a mile off. The
greater number of nests is in a large Scotch fir,
in which there are also a good many rooks' nests.
The top of the tree really looks loaded with the
nests of the herons and rooks. When we were
there last year, the young herons were just big
enough to show their long necks out of their
nests in all directions." If Gilbert White were
willing to ride many miles to see a tree laden
with herons' nests, I felt justified in starting off
by the train to see a Scotch fir-tree full of the
nests of rooks and herons together. On the
spot, this extraordinary fact was confirmed by
the head gardener and by a gentleman residing
in the house. I saw the rooks' and herons'
nests, easily distinguishable by their differences
in build and size, in the lofty fir-tree. At the
foot of it, I picked up a rook's and a heron's
feather, and up above the pine and elm-trees,
some eighty or ninety feet high, I saw both rooks
and herons flying about. Duels do, however,
occur in this happy family occasionally, but they
have never gone further than a few pecks from
the rooks' beaks, and a few cuffs from the herons'
wings.

The explanation of this fact is far from being
obvious. No doubt herons, like other animals,
are the creatures of circumstances. Wild and
wary in the extreme where they are molested
and persecuted, and hear the murderous gun,
they are tame enough where they know from
experience that they are safe. On the Lake of
Killarney they permit themselves to be
approached nearly. When a boat approaches them
at certain parts on the Wye, they just rise and
perch on an overhanging bough, without flying
away, while at other places they are very wild.
At Windmill Hill they are carefully protected.
But I suspect it is owing to the sagacity of the
rooks that the nests of these foes occupy the
same trees. The rooks are not protected at
Windmill Hill, nor encouraged there, and they would
be driven away but for the fear of also scaring
away the herons. No rook dare attack a heron
in his nest. Have the rooks found out by
experience that they are somehow safer the nearer
their nests are to the nests of the herons?

Mr. Knox graphically describes his visit to
the heronry at Parham. While these patrician
birds, so long associated with the old English
hall and baronial castle, are gradually
disappearing before the utilitarian improvements
of the nineteenth century, Western Sussex can
still boast of one of the most interesting