LITTLE EGRET. 183 



this bird, " There is a specimen in the Dublin Museum, 

 which was shot in the harbour of Cork, in 1792"; and 

 Thompson states that there is an entry in the Donation 

 Book of the University Museum of that city, dated December, 

 1788, recording the presentation by the Rev. J. Elgee, Wex- 

 ford, of " a bird of the species called the Small White Heron, 

 whose present existence in the British Islands has been 

 doubted." These specimens have long since disappeared. 

 Little reliance can be placed upon the statement in Pen- 

 nant's 'British Zoology' (Ed. 1812, ii. p. 21), "We once 

 received out of Anglesey the feathers of a bird shot there, 

 which we suspect to he the Egret." The Bev. Bobert 

 Holdsworth, of Brixham, to whom the Author was indebted 

 for many valuable communications, sent word that in 1816 

 a bird was shot on Flatoars, on the river Dart, which exactly 

 corresponded with the description of the Egret in Montagu's 

 Ornithological Dictionary as a bird of the second year, being 

 tinged with grey on the neck and breast. The Rev. L. Jenyns, 

 in his 'Manual of British Vertebrate Animals ' (p. 188), says, 

 "In April, 1824, two specimens are recorded to have been 

 killed at Penzance, in Cornwall, and one of them to have 

 been preserved"; but Couch, in his 'Cornish Fauna,' only 

 says vaguely that one or two specimens are known, and in 

 the Edition of 1878, the species is omitted from his list. 

 However, Fox, in his ' Synopsis of the Newcastle Museum ' 

 (p. 254), quotes a letter from H. Mewburn, dated St. 

 German's, 7th March, 1826, in which he speaks of a pair 

 of Egrets obtained during the past eighteen months. 

 Mr. J. C. Dale, the well-known Entomologist, states (Mag. 

 Nat. Hist. ix. p. 598), that he had a memorandum of an 

 Egret having been shot near the river Stour, at Christ- 

 church, Hants, in the beginning of July, 1822, by the late 

 Mr. William Lockyer, who sold it to Mr. Barrow, of Christ- 

 church, by whom it was preserved.* Mr. Dale goes on to 



* Mr. K. Hart of Christchurch informs tlie Editor that this example passed 

 into the hands of Capt. Cox, at whose sale Mr. Hart purchased it. He cannot 

 trace a bird said by Mr. Wise to have been shot near Hayle {rf. J. H. Gurney, 

 jun., Zool. s.s. p. l.")12). 



