88 Bird Sotrs from F.ast London, Cape Province. 



course of a <2;ood many years I have often seen them collected 

 upon it. 



The Little Ef^ret is in my records as occurring here on 

 9th October. 



Cattle Egret. (Bidmlcus ibis.) 



It is also seen hereabouts, but not often in the districts 

 fronting the coast, which is strange considering that nowhere 

 are the ticks so abundant. One might ask, indeed, why has 

 not the terribly tick-infested coast cattle which has obtained 

 for so long induced these and certain other birds with the 

 " O.xpecker'' habit to make a ])ermanent home in our midst ? 



Squacco Heron. (Ardeola ralloidea.) 



I have never seen it in the flesh, but know of a stuffed 

 specimen in East London which was undoubtedly shot near 

 this place some years ago. It must be regarded as seldom 

 in evidence down this way. 



Night Heron. {Njicticorax nycticorax.) 



I have twice been shown specimens of this bird by our 

 local taxidermist, to whom they had been sent by neighbour- 

 ing farmers to be mounted as rare birds. One of them was 

 said to have been flushed from some thick grass close to a 

 spring out on the veld, where it apparently passed the day. 



Bittern. 



At one time or other during the summer months oF the 

 last 15 years I have had specimens in my hands of the lied- 

 necked Bittern, the Dwarf Bittern, and the Cape Bittern ; 

 all procured between here and the Kei liiver mouth by a 

 friend who had a farm on the coast out that way, and having 

 acrpiired ornithological tastes whilst a gamekee})er in Sco'- 

 land in his young days he had an eye for anything out of 

 the common, and often furnished me with interesting items 

 for record in those days upon the margins of Sharpe's edition 

 of Layard's ' liirds of South Africa.' A poor man with a 

 little enthusiasm might scrape together so much as to acquire 

 a copv of that work, but the i)rice of the four volumes by 



