148 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
remains of two good sized roach, one quite five inches 
long. As far as I could tell, owing to the shot marks, 
it was a young female, and presented the following 
appearance in its immature plumage. A slight red 
crest on the head, the dark lines down the front of the 
neck distinctly marked by young reddish feathers, just 
shooting, blended with black longitudinal blotches, 
becoming brown on the breast; cere (when dead) greenish; 
bill yellowish-green ; quill feathers of the wings and tail 
perfect, of a purplish blue colour like the bloom on a 
plum ; wing coverts and back tawny, but the hackles, 
just showing, of a reddish tint; the bare portions of the 
tibia bright yellow all round, the tarsi dark brown in 
front, the posterior portions yellow, as also the under 
surface of the feet; the “ feather-tracks” on the breast 
and on the lower part of the back composed of bright 
yellow patches of down-like floss silk. 
Another young bird, a male, in my own collection, 
was purchased in the Norwich fishmarket by Mr. 8. 
Bligh, on the 28th of October, 1865, where it was 
hanging up in a perfectly fresh state together with a 
fine bittern, and on enquiry both birds were ascertained 
to have been shot at Ludham a day or two before. This 
bird was also very fat, but weighed only two pounds 
three ounces, and the stomach contained merely a diy 
pellet of mouse hair, which, from a portion of the tail 
remaining in the pellet, was believed by Mr. Bligh to 
belong to the short-tailed field species. 
The purple heron breeds in Holland in considerable 
numbers: its occurrence, therefore, on our shores, from 
time to time, is easily to be accounted for. 
