176 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
in his own collection, was shot by his father about two 
hundred yards from the front of his residence, at Horsey, 
in April, 1827. 
Since that time this species has become an extremely 
rare visitant to our coast,* the only recent instance, 
to my knowledge, being an immature bird, killed on the 
8th of November, 1860, in the Caister marshes, near 
Yarmouth. This specimen, now in the collection of the 
Rev. C. J. Lucas, of Burgh, and sent to him, in the 
flesh, as an American bittern, resembles the second 
figure in Yarrell’s wood-cut, having a triangular 
white patch, of more or less extent, at the tip of each 
feather. The feathers of the head and neck are also 
streaked with brown and white, each feather broadly 
edged with brown; the quill and centre of the web 
being white throughout.+ It is most probable that the 
specimen sold in Mr. Miller’s collection, in 1853, was one 
of those mentioned by the Messrs. Paget as obtained 
in that neighbourhood, and Messrs. Sheppard and 
Whitear were informed by Mr. Hunt, of Norwich, that 
“one in his possession was shot in Suffolk, and was 
kept alive some time, being only slightly wounded.” 
* A male night-heron, in the Wisbech Museum, as I learn from 
Mr. T. W. Foster, was killed at South Brink, Wisbech, in July, 
1849. 
+ In the “Ibis” for 1861, p. 58, in his notes “On the Orni- 
thology of Hongkong, Macao, and Canton,’ my friend Mr. R. 
Swinhoe gives a most interesting description of the breeding habits 
of this species, from which it appears that “the immature plumage 
of the yearling undergoes little change until the second winter, 
or until the bird is over two years old.” A bird in its first 
plumage was found sitting on a nest containing eggs, and the 
testes of one dissected in its juvenile dress, plainly indicated its 
powers to breed at that age. 
