536 ARDEID^B. 



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 some years since on Uxbridge Moor in 

 Middlesex. In Norfolk several specimens have been ob- 

 tained. The figure at the head of this subject was drawn 

 from a very fine specimen in the collection of Dr. Thack- 

 eray, at King^s College, Cambridge ; a specimen has been 

 killed in Yorkshire, another at the mouth of the Tyne, and 

 another in Northumberland, now 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 pre- 

 served in the cabinet of William Sinclair, Esq. of Belfast. 

 Specimens have also been obtained in the east and south 

 of Ireland. 



The Little Bittern has been killed as far north as 

 Sweden. It occurs occasionally in Germany, is rather 



