e, which arose when the
diversion of heron-hawking was in high fashion. It has since been
corrupted into the absurd vulgar proverb, "not to know a hawk from a
handsaw!"[9] The flesh of the heron is now looked upon as of little
value, and rarely if ever brought to market, though formerly a heron
was estimated at thrice the value of a goose, and six times the price
of a partridge.[10]

[5] Oiseaux, p 189.
[6] 19 Henry VII. c. 11.
[7] Ibid.
[8] I James, c. 27, s. 2.
[9] Pennant, Brit. Zool. ii. 341.
[10] Northumberland Household Book, p. 104.

The heronries recorded to be existing at present in this country are
in Windsor Great Park, on the borders of Bagshot Heath; at
Penshurst-place, Kent; at Hutton, the seat of Mr. Bethel, near
Beverley, in Yorkshire; at Pixton, the seat of Lord Carnarvon; in
Gobay Park, on the road to Penrith, near a rocky pass called Yew Crag,
on the north side of the romantic lake of Ulswater; at Cressi Hall,
six miles from Spalding, in Lincolnshire; at Downington-in-Holland, in
the same county; at Brockley Woods, near Bristol;[11] at Brownsea
Island, near Poole, in Dorsetshire; and, in Scotland, Colonel Montagu
mentions one in a small island, in a lake, where, there being
only a single scrubby oak, much too scanty to contain all the nests,
many were placed on the ground.[12] Besides these, we are acquainted
with a small one in the parish of Craigie, near Kilmarnock, in
Ayrshire.[13] We have little doubt but there are several more
unrecorded, for the birds may occasionally be seen in every part of
the island. In Lower Brittany, heronries are frequently to be found on
the tall trees of forests; and as they feed their young with fish,
many of these fall to the ground, and are greedily devoured by swine,
which has given rise to the story that the swine of that country are
fattened by fish which drop from the trees like beech-mast.[14]

[11] Jennings Ornithologia, p. 199, note.
[12] Ornith. Dict. Art. Heron.
[13] J.R.
[14] Belon, Oiseaux, p. 189

At the close of the volume are a few well-digested observations, which
will leave the reader in a delightful train of reflection, impress him
with the value of the preceding pages, and enable him to close the
volume with gratitude to its author:--

"Although, in the preceding pages, we have considered birds as miners,
as ground-builders, as masons, as carpenters, as platform-builders, as
basket-makers, as weaver