184
ESSEX HERONRIES.
on the enthronisation of George Nevill, brother to the celebrated
Earl of Warwick, as Archbishop of York, in 1464, no less than 400
"heron-shawes" were served up. Their usual price appears to have
been "xiid." Into the vexed question of their suitability for the
table I will not enter further than to say that reports on the subject vary:
one person will tell you that they are very good, much resembling hare;
while another will denounce heron as worse than an old Scoter.
For many years past Mr. James Round, M.P., has had a young one
from the Birch heronry cooked, but how I cannot say. Mr. James
Smail, in an interesting paper on "Herons and Border Heronries"
(Hist. Berwickshire Nat. Club, 1882-4, p. 331), says of herons' flesh
that, "Even when plump, and dressed and roasted to perfection, it
is so fishy in flavour that eating of it would turn almost any stomach
of the present day. But the young birds taken from the nest and
properly stewed are really good ; I have seen them at table repeatedly.
Old birds should perhaps be buried for a few days before being
roasted. In our Western Isles the cormorant is used for soup—and
it makes excellent soup—but the bird is buried for a few days before
boiling."
The heron is a very voracious bird, and is almost omnivorous.
In Mr. F. Norgate's collected notes on the food of birds we read
("Zool.,"1881, p. 410):—"Heron : Fish, reptiles, small mammals and
birds (Yarrell); frogs, water-beetles, boat-flies, water-rats, and
especially pike fry and eels (Stevenson); feeds its young with eels;
these and pike seem to be about the most destructive fish we have in
our British fresh-waters (Norgate); the heron also devours young
wild ducks, and will take young moorhens from the nest (Harting)."
Mr. Mcintosh says (Morris's "Naturalist," i., 61) :—"The heron is
not at all particular as to its 'bill of fare,'—toads, frogs, snakes,
mice, fish of all sorts and sizes (we once watched a heron standing
in a shallow part of a lake seize and devour in the short space of
half-an-hour six good-sized carp), water-newts, and the roots of aquatic
plants, as Caltha palustris; also the flowers of Sparganium." Mr.
Wm. Lines (Col. Tuffnell-Tyrell's keeper), who kept two herons for
over a year, tells me that they fed readily on any animal food offered
them, which mostly consisted of keeper's refuse, but that they
especially liked rat and rabbit. In the West Mead castings rabbit-
fur was certainly evident, in fact those pellets examined at our first
visit seemed almost entirely composed of rabbits' and rats' (mostly
water-rats') fur. Mr. T. E. Gunn says ("Zool.," 2nd ser., xi., 4,790):—