56 RESIDENTS AND MIGRANTS. 
twice in Scotland, and is stated to have been once ob- 
tained in Ireland. 
NIGHT HERON. Nycticorax griseus (Linneus). 
There is good reason to believe that this bird at one 
time nested annually in England in suitable localities. 
Although this is no longer the case, specimens are still 
met with at irregular intervals every year (I have notes 
of its occurrence in upwards of fifty instances), and 
it may accordingly be considered an annual visitant. 
An interesting account of the nesting-habits of this 
bird, as observed by Mr. Swinhoe, will be found in 
‘The Ibis’ for 1861, p. 53. 
COMMON BITTERN. Sotaurus stellaris (Linneus). 
At one time common in England and Ireland; but 
the drainage of marsh-lands has almost entirely de- 
terred it from nesting here. It is now most frequently 
met with in winter. Messrs. Lubbock and Stevenson, 
in their respective works, refer to several instances of 
its having nested in Norfolk. Graves, in his ‘ British 
Ornithology,’ mentions a nest on the river Cam in 
1821, which contained four young birds and an addled 
ege; and gives a figure of the old bird, which was 
shot off the nest. In 1849 or 1850, a nest containing 
four eggs was found at Tring Reservoir, Herts*; and 
a few years later a nest and eggs were taken, and the 
female bird shot, near Drayton Beauchamp, Bucks* ; 
while, in the latest instance recorded, a nest con- 
* A. G. More, in ‘ The Ibis,’ 1865, p. 433. 
y A. C. Kennedy, in ‘ The Zoologist,’ 1868, p. 1255. 
