171
ESSEX HERONRIES.
By EDWARD A. FITCH, F.L.S., F.E.S., etc. (President of the Essex Field Club).
[Read April 21st, 1888.]
(With Plate forming the Frontispiece to the present volume.)
In 1851, Mr. J. Mcintosh contributed to Dr. Beverley R. Morris's
Magazine, "The Naturalist" (vol. i., p. 60), a list of thirty-two
Heronries in England and Scotland, which then were in existence.
The list made no reference to Essex, but subsequently "H. J. C."
mentioned the Wanstead Park Heronry (Nat. i., 163), and much
additional information on British Heronries was contributed to the
pages of the above mentioned periodical; so that in the Rev. F. O.
Morris's "British Birds" (vol. iv., 96) we find a list of eighty-four
British Heronries; viz., 68 in England, 5 in Wales, 9 in Scotland,
and 2 in Ireland. In Mr. J. E. Harting's important paper on British
Heronries ("Zoologist" for 1872, pp. 3,261—3,272) no less than
130 Heronries are noted for England and Wales, 70 for Scotland
and 49 for Ireland. In an appendix (Zool., 1873, pp. 3,404—3,407)
20 are added for England and Wales, 2 for Scotland, and 3 for
Ireland, and in subsequent volumes of the "Zoologist" mention is
made of 21 additional Heronries in England and Wales, and 5 in
Ireland; making altogether 300 in the United Kingdom. The only
references to Essex are:—"One in Wanstead Park, on elms and
wych-elms (Lord Cowley). Twenty years ago the herons here tenanted
some trees at a different spot in the park. They now occupy some
tall elms and wych-elms upon an island in the largest sheet of water.
When I visited the place last there were about thirty pairs of birds.
There is another Heronry in this county, near Chelmsford, the seat of
Sir John Tyrell" (Zool. 1872, page 3,163)-
Mr. Harting's prefatory remarks in his paper on these interesting
bird-colonies are so pertinent that I cannot do better than introduce
them here (with the author's permission) to his fellow members of
our Field Club. He says :—
"To the archaeologist no less than to the naturalist, a Heronry is always an
object of interest. The sight of a heron reminds one of a hawk, and recals to
mind the days when our ancestors rode forth with hooded falcons on their fists,
and all the accompaniments of bells and jesses, gloves and leashes, lure and cadge,
to fly at the largest, and withal the most crafty, of British wild-fowl. This ancient
pastime has marked the heron as a bird of no common interest, and has conse-
quently invested his dwelling-place with a charm which attaches to that of no
other species, unless perhaps to the eyrie of his enemy, the noble falcon.
Fortunate are those who can boast the ownership of a Herony, and watch from
M 2