150 BIEDS OP NORFOLK. 



ARDEA GrARZETTA, Linnaeus. 

 LITTLE EGRET. 



This beautiful species has not hitherto been included 

 in the list of Norfolk rarities ; but whilst there is reason 

 to believe that others have occurred, the following 

 authentic instance fully entitles it to a place in the 

 present work. In 1864, when staying at Worthing, Mr. 

 J. H. Gurney was informed by Mr. Wells, a local bird- 

 stuffer,. that he had recently seen a Little Egret, said to 

 have been killed near Norwich, in the possession of 

 Dr. Diamond, of Twickenham. Further enquiry fully 

 confirmed this statement,, and from the particulars kindly 

 forwarded to me by Dr. Diamond, it appears that this 

 specimen was sent him as a " strange bird" about 1834 

 or 1835, by Mr. Roger Stoughton, of Sparham, who, 

 as an old schoolfellow, under Yalpy, at the Norwich 

 Grammar School, knew his ornithological tastes. The 

 bird was forwarded in the flesh, and was preserved by 

 a birdstuffer who subsequently went to America and 

 died there. 



Mr. Clarke, of Saffron Walden, who nearly forty 

 years ago spent several winters at Yarmouth collecting 

 natural history objects, and was well acquainted with 

 all the local collectors at that time, was informed by 

 the late Mr. Leonard Rudd that the little egret was 

 " sometimes met with near Yarmouth," and there is 

 not much reason to doubt that the specimen sold in 

 1853, with the rest of Mr. Stephen Miller's Yarmouth 

 collection was killed in that neighbourhood, but I cannot 

 ascertain by whom it was purchased. 



Mr. Lubbock refers to a statement in London's 

 " Magazine of Natural History" for 1836 (vol. ix., p. 

 320), by the Rev. E. Yentris, of Cambridge, wherein 

 the writer says he had "recently been informed that 



