158 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



sold it for the price I had offered, much to my annoy- 

 ance and disappointment. It is something, however, to 

 have heard this rare bird. When he shot the other it 

 was after several attempts to get it to rise, in which he 

 had failed ; he then waited, and about four o'clock in 

 the morning it rose spontaneously." 



There is a notice, also, in the same volume of the 

 "Zoologist" (p. 2528), by Mr. J. Smith, of Yarmouth, 

 to the effect that three specimens of the little bittern 

 had been shot in the marshes, near Yarmouth, during 

 the spring of 1849, but no further particulars are given 

 respecting them. In a recent visit, however, to the 

 Bury Museum, I found an adult female of this species 

 amongst Mr. Dennis's birds, which, in the memorandum 

 attached, was said to have been killed at Potter- 

 Heigham, on the 18th of May, 1849, and it was also 

 stated that a male had been shot, at the same place, 

 on the following day. These I have no doubt are two 

 of the birds referred to by Mr. Smith. 



On the 17th of May, 1852, as recorded by Mr. 

 Gurney in the " Zoologist " (p. 3503) a young male that 

 had nearly completed the assumption of the adult 

 plumage was killed at Somerton,"* one of the smaller 

 broads. This specimen, which is preserved amongst the 

 British birds in the Norwich Museum (No. 207) is 

 described by Mr. Gurney as having been in good condi- 

 tion, with the remark that " the stomach contained the 

 caudal moiety of a roach, the anterior portions of which 

 appeared to have been digested, but which, when entire, 

 must have been four inches long besides the tail." 



Again, in the first week of December, 1856, another 



* This is evidently the same bird which was erroneously 

 recorded in the " Naturalist " of that year (p. 252), by Mr. J. O. 

 Harper, as killed at Somerleyton, near Lowestoft, a far less likely 

 locality. 



