NIGHT HERON. 583 



inch and a half in breadth. The young bird is brown, 

 with elongated yellowish white spots, as shown in the 

 wood-engraving at the head of this subject. From the 

 great difference in colour when compared with the adult 

 Night Heron, the young bird was considered as a different 

 species, and named Ardea Gardeni, and Gardenian Heron, 

 and was called by Dr. Latham the Spotted Heron. Gmelin 

 conferred a service in suggesting the scientific name of 

 Nycticorax Gardeni for the Night Heron, as it had the 

 effect of uniting two birds, parent and offspring, which had 

 previously been considered as two distinct species. The 

 Zoological Society are seldom without living specimens of 

 this bird in different states of plumage ; and in January, 

 1834, as will be seen by the printed Proceedings of the 

 Society for that year, page 27, three examples were ex- 

 hibited at the evening meeting, one of which supplied the 

 interesting link in this species, being a young bird which 

 united in its plumage the brown spotted wing of the Gar- 

 denian Heron, with the black head and ash-coloured back 

 of the Night Heron : thus exhibiting the change from the 

 young to the adult bird. 



The Night Heron has been killed in Sussex, Dorsetshire, 

 Devonshire, Flintshire, Anglesey, and twice in Ireland; 

 one of these was shot on the reedy border of a small 

 lake at Beaulieu, the seat of the Rev. A. J. Montgomery, 

 in the county of Louth, in May, 1848; in the inland 

 counties of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Oxford- 

 shire, and on the eastern side of our island in Kent, 

 Suffolk, Norfolk, and twice in Scotland. Since the pub- 

 lication of the first edition of this work, a fine male was 

 shot at Radipole near Weymouth, as I learn by a com- 

 munication from George Frampton, Esq. " A pair, pro- 

 bably male and female, had been observed flying about and 

 pitching on the trees in that village." 



