142
NOTES.
To the poor and to the homeless vagrant he was generous even to a fault, and by
all who knew him, gentle and simple, he will be mourned and remembered as
one upright in all his dealings, leaving behind him the sweet record of a stain-
less, useful, and honourable life.
W. C. & E. A. F.
Mr. E. G. Varenne, M.R.C.S.
Essex botany has sustained another loss by the death of Mr. Varenne, of
Kelvedon. Up to the time of going to press we have been unable to gather
materials for a memoir, but we hope to print a notice of the deceased botanist in
an early number of the Essex Naturalist.
The Raven (Corvus corax, L.)—Last week Mr. Bertie Sadd took three young
ravens from a nest on the Lower (Osea) Island in the Blackwater. Last year he
took four from the same nest, but only one of these (a cripple) is still alive, the
other three were stung to death by bees when in their aviary. From time imme-
morial ravens have built on the raven tree (an elm) on Northey Island, but this
has been deserted now for the last five years. This year we had two carrion crow's
and a sparrowhawk's nest on Northey. Yesterday I took five young sparrowhawks
from a nest in Hazeleigh Hall Wood. I had previously taken a single egg from
the same nest.—Edward A. Fitch, Maldon, 8th July, 1887.
Essex Heronries.—(Essex Naturalist, i., 119.) Morant in his "History
of Essex" (1768) speaking of Belhus, Aveley, says:—"Here was formerly a
heronry, which, being a thing not commonly to be met with, was esteemed a
circumstance of no small consequence while the diversion of hawking was in
fashion ; but of late years not thought to ballance the inconveniences attending it,
and the herons therefore not suffered to build longer." (Vol. i., p. 78.) And
again, "The Manor of Heron, or Herne, East Horndon, seems originally to have
taken its name from a heronry here, as was lately at Belhouse in Alveley. As
for the family of Heron that possessed it, and from whom it came by marriage
into that of Tyrell, they undoubtedly took their name from this place of their
habitation" (Morant, i, 208). The Heron Hall part of Earl Horndon and Ingrave,
is now known as Herongate. Sir James Tyrell married Margaret, daughter and
heir of Sir William Heron, in the reign of Edward II. or III. A member of the
same family, Sir John Heron, held what was late Wanstead Park, then styled "a
great messuage called Naked-hall Hawe, and lands in Wanstead and Ilford," but
his son Giles, for refusing to acknowledge the supremacy of King Henry VIII.,
was attainted of high treason and forced in the year 1531 to give his estates up to
the king. Giles Heron married Cecilia, daughter of the great Sir Thomas Moore.
Thus two of our Essex heronries appear to have been connected with the Heron
family ; and in Yarrell's "British Birds" (3rd edition ii., 538) we read "Pennant
mentions having himself counted more than eighty nests upon one oak at Cressy
Hall, near Spalding, in Lincolnshire, an estate then belonging to the Heron
family, one of the most ancient in this country." There is a disused heronry at
Walton's Hall, Mucking, belonging to the trustees of the late Mr. Arthur Zachariah
Cox, of Herongate; it stands on the edge of the marshes south of the railway
leading from Stanford-le-Hope to Tilbury, about half a mile from the Thames ;
the trees are oak and ash with a few elms. Mr. William Clark, jun., who has
been tenant of Walton's Hall for some years, tells me he never knew a nest there,
although six to eight herons are constantly to be found on his marshes. It is the
same here. I see about half a dozen herons almost every day throughout the
spring, and have often wondered where they can breed. About seven years ago
there was one nest in Mundon Furze, two and a half miles south from here, which
was destroyed by shooting through the nest and killing the parent bird. Still
this same nest was repaired and occupied next year, and two other nests were
built not far off. I saw these, which were subsequently rifled and destroyed, and
I have heard of no other nests either before or since.—Edward A. Fitch,
Maldon, July 10th, 1887.