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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 486, April 23, 1831

Note (return) — THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

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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

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