LITTLE BITTERN. ans 
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 eges, 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 little bittern was shot on his Breydon marshes, 
but of this I can find no further record, and the 
occurrence of another specimen 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 offering 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.” 
