568 ARDETD^. 



leaves and bits of grass, the nest itself being attached to 

 upright growing reeds. The female lays four or five eggs, 

 one inch five lines in length, by one inch and half a line 

 in breadth, of a uniform dull white. 



So many examples of the Little Bittern have now been 

 taken in various parts of this country, that a brief enume- 

 ration only will be necessary. Montagu mentions that one 

 was shot from the stump of a tree on the bank of the 

 Avon, near Bath ; and H. E. Strickland, Esq. sent me 

 notice of one that was shot in the spring of 1838, at 

 Shobden Court, in Herefordshire ; and this bird has also 

 been killed in Shropshire, and in South Wales. It has 

 been killed in Cornwall, and several times in Devonshire. 

 One has been recorded as having been killed at Lytchet, in 

 Dorsetshire, and one is also recorded to have been killed 

 near Christchurch in Hampshire. Berkshire has been 

 named as producing one ; and a specimen in my own col- 

 lection was killed on Uxbridge Moor in Middlesex. In 

 Norfolk several specimens have been obtained. The 

 figure at the head of this subject was drawn from a very 

 fine specimen in the collection of Dr. Thackeray, at King's 

 College, Cambridge ; a specimen has been killed in York- 

 shire, another at the mouth of the Tyne, and another in 

 Northumberland, in the collection which belonged to the 

 late Sir M. W. Ridley, Bart. From this last-mentioned 

 bird Bewick's figure of the adult Little ^Bittern was 

 taken. Dr. Fleming mentions one that was shot at Sanda, 

 in Orkney ; and Mr. William Thompson, in his recorded 

 Notes of the Birds of Ireland, mentions that a Little 

 Bittern, shot in the county of Armagh, is preserved in 

 the cabinet of William Sinclair, Esq., of Belfast. Speci- 

 mens have also been obtained in the east and south of 

 Ireland. 



The Little Bittern has been killed as far north as 



