LITTLE BITTEEN. 157 



to have been killed near Yarmouth, but the exact date 

 is not known. Mr. Rising, of Horsey, has a pair, which 

 he believes were killed at Herringfleet, near Lowe- 

 stoft, some years since, but whether identical with 

 any I have already enumerated I am unable to 

 determine. On the same authority, however, I may 

 add that a pair of these birds between the years 

 1824 and 1829, frequented some swampy ground 

 adjoining the parsonage at Catfield, from which locality 

 some eggs, resembling those of the little bittern, were 

 taken at the time by the then Curate, the Rev. 

 James Layton, by whom they were shown to Mr. 

 Rising. Mr. Rising also informs me that in February, 

 1842, a Kttle bittern was shot on his Breydon marshes, 

 but of this I can find no further record, and the 

 occurrence of another sx^ecimen at South Walsham, 

 about the 11th of June, 1849 (in the possession of the 

 Rev. J. Burroughes, of Lingwood), is thus noticed in 

 the " Zoologist " for that year (p. 2498) by the Rev. H. 

 T. Frere,"^ " On two or three successive nights, when 

 sailing on the broad, we had heard a noise in the 

 marsh at the side, resembling the bark of a dog, or 

 more nearly the grunt a paviour gives when dropping 

 his rammer. Though all the party were tolerably well 

 acquainted with the notes of the marsh birds, this was 

 a novelty to us. A marshman, however [the one before 

 mentioned], recognised it as the note of the little 

 bittern, one of which (at present in the possession of 

 Mr. Jary, of South Walsham) he had shot some thirty 

 years before. I sent him a message oiFering him a price 

 for the bird, and on Saturday night or early on Sunday 

 morning he shot it, but took it to another person and 



* The same bird, recorded in the "Zoologist" for 1851 (p. 2989), 

 by Mr. J, O. Harper, as "a beautiful male, preserved by Knight 

 of Norwich." 



