ARDEID.^. 



377 



THE SQUACCO HERON. 



Ardea ralloides, Scopoli. 



About fifty examples of this little Heron have been taken in the 

 British Islands since 1775, when a specimen was killed in Wiltshire. 

 The other counties visited by it are Hants (and the Isle of Wight), 

 Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall (about a dozen instances), 

 Montgomeryshire, Denbighshire, Brecon, Salop, Notts, Suffolk, 

 Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Cumberland. In Scotland, one 

 was shot on the Forth and Clyde Canal, another near Edinburgh, and 

 a third on Sept. 7th 1896 in the Orkneys. In Ireland, Mr. Ussher 

 informs me that nine or ten have been obtained at long intervals, 

 between May and November 23rd. With very few exceptions, 

 however, these visitors have arrived in spring or summer, and have 

 been in immature plumage. 



On the Continent the Squacco Heron is only a straggler to Poland, 

 Northern Germany, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and the north of 

 France ; but it is not uncommon in the valley of the Loire, where 

 I believe it breeds. South of that line and of the Alpine ranges, it 

 is generally distributed in suitable localities throughout Central and 



