n
Kent, the seat of Lord de Lisle, where their descendants continued for
more than two hundred years; from thence they migrated to Michelgrove,
about seventy miles from Penshurst and eight from Parham; here they
remained for nearly twenty years, until the proprietor of the estate
disposed of it to the late Duke of Norfolk, who, having purchased it,
not as a residence, but with the view of increasing the local property
in the neighbourhood of Arundel, pulled down the house, and felled one
or two of the trees on which the herons had constructed their nests. The
migration commenced immediately, but appears to have been gradual; for
three seasons elapsed before all the members of the heronry had found
their way over the Downs to their new quarters in the fir-woods of
Parham. This occurred about seventeen years ago [written c. 1848]."

Sussex, says Mr. Borrer, author of _The Birds of Sussex_, has two other
large heronries--at Windmill Hill Place, near Hailsham, and Brede, near
Winchelsea--and some smaller ones, one being at Molecomb, above
Goodwood.

Betsy's Oak in Parham Park is said to be so called because Queen
Elizabeth sat beneath it. But another and more probable legend calls it
Bates's Oak, after Bates, an archer at Agincourt in the retinue of the
Earl of Arundel (and in _Henry V._). Good Queen Bess, however, dined in
the hall of Parham House in 1592. At Northiam, in East Sussex, we shall
come (not to be utterly baulked) to a tree under which she truly did sit
and dine too.

[Sidenote: JACK PUDDING'S WISDOM]

Beyond Parham, less than two miles to the east, is Storrington, a quiet
Sussex village far from the rail and the noise of the world, with the
Downs within hail, and fine sparsely-inhabited country between them and
it to wander in. The church is largely modern. I find the following
sententious paragraph in the county paper for 1792:--"This is an age of
_Sights_ and _polite entertainment_ in the country as well as in the
city.--The little town of _Storrington_ has lately been visited by a
_Company of Comedians_,--_a Mountebank Doctor_,--and a _Puppet Show_.
One day the Doctor's _Jack Pudding_ finding the shillings come in but
slowly, exclaimed to his Master, 'Gad, Sir, it is not worth _our_ while
to stay here any longer, _players_ have got all the _gold_, _we_ all the
_silver_, and _Punch_ all the _copper_, so, like sagacious locusts, let
us migrate from the place we helped to impoverish."

[Illustration: _Am