180 ESSEX HERONRIES.
herons "used to fight alarming." Gooch and another old resident
said that the rooks took large numbers of the herons' eggs. This,
and their persecution by the tenant of the farm which encircled the
heronry, who used to shoot the herons at breeding-time (much to the
annoyance of his landlord), combined with a second fall of timber
about twenty years ago, drove the herons away. In 1870 there were
about thirty nests, which had been the average number for several
years, while Mr. Frank Eagle farmed Brightlingsea Hall; in 1871
there were only fifteen or eighteen, and the herons finally deserted
the spot in 1872. Both our informants agreed that as the rooks
increased the herons decreased, and finally left the rooks masters
of the grove. It was said that they went towards the Manningtree
river, the Stour, and we were told that most of the birds now visiting
the creek at Brightlingsea fly northwards. Possibly the colony
migrated to Orwell Park, Suffolk, at the time the birds from
Woolverstone Park did the like, about the spring of 1871,
according to Mr. Harting ("Zool.," 2nd ser., viii., 3,406). Mr. John
Bateman, the respected owner of the estate, however, is of opinion
that the migration was not to the north, but "to Birch Hall heronry,
which has become much strengthened, and to St. Osyth Park, where
a small heronry has been started in Nun's [or Nunn's] Wood."6
Mr. Bateman very feelingly writes to me: "Having promptly got
rid of the 'heronicide' tenant [alluded to above] in 1872, I did all
in my power to induce the herons to re-settle. They have tried over
and over again, but have always been beaten by the rooks, who have
now taken possession of the western end of the wood as well as the
eastern, and trebled their numbers." Mr. Bateman adds that he
never allows a shot to be fired at a heron in Brightlingsea, the birds
being frequently seen in half-dozens together in all parts of the
parish ; he fears, however, "that it is a case of George III. and the
American colonies over again—conciliation has been tried too late."
As hinted above, we may hope that a heronry at St. Osyth will
not long remain a myth. Hearing lately from Mr. Robert Cross, of
Hill House, St. Osyth, that a few herons were breeding this year in
Nunn's Wood, St. Osyth, I wrote to Sir J. H. Johnson, the owner of
the Priory estate, for some particulars, and he has kindly replied as
follows :—"Herons resort in great numbers to my ponds to fish. I
have put up twenty or thirty at a time. Five or six years ago a
6 In the late Mr. J. Yelloly Watson's "Tendring Hundred in the Olden Time," we read
(p. 130) that "a heronry existed in Thick's Wood from time immemorial, but the herons took their
departure a few years ago."