146 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



Sir Thomas Browne included the above species in his 

 "Account of Norfolk Birds/ 3 but even should this be 

 so, he gives us no reason to suppose that it was then 

 otherwise than an accidental visitant. Of recent authors 

 Selby is the first to mention the Purple Heron in con- 

 nection with this county, stating in his "British 

 Ornithology " that in the month of May, 1830, a 

 fine male of this species, killed in Norfolk, came into 

 his possession,* and its mate into that of Sir William 

 Jardine. He also adds in a foot note, "since writing 

 the above I have heard of three other specimens, two 

 killed in Norfolk and another near London." To this may 

 be also added the testimony of the late Mr. Hoy, who, 

 in recording the occurrence of an immature specimen in 

 1835 ("Mag. Nat. Hist./' new series, vol. i., p. 117), "near 

 the mouth of the Woodbridge river in Suffolk," says, " I 

 have also known two or three individuals to have been 

 met with in Norfolk within a few years." The latter, as 

 well as the two mentioned in Mr. Selby' s foot note, are 

 no doubt included amongst those of which further par- 

 ticulars have been given by local writers. Mr. Hunt, under 

 the name of Ardea caspia, or " African heron," records 

 a specimen as shot " a few years since near Ormesby," 

 which is no doubt the same bird which, in Sir William 

 Hooker's MS., is described as shot at Filby in 1810. In 

 the same MS., also, under the name of the " African 

 heron," the immature bird in the Norwich Museum (No. 

 202b), procured near Yarmouth, and presented by the 



three inches long; back heron coloured, intermixed with long 

 white feathers; the strong feathers black; the breast black and 

 white, most black; the legs and feet not green, but an ordinary 

 dark cock colour." 



* Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., who has recently had an opportunity 

 of inspecting the late Mr. Selby's collection at Twizell house, 

 informs me that it contains a fine adult purple heron, most 

 probably the one sent from Norfolk. 



