4928 Tue ZooLocist—May, 1876. 
a strong and decidedly unpleasant aromatic odour. When washed with 
fresh water this greatly disappeared, and, after béing stewed, it gave myself 
and several other gentlemen who tasted it the idea of coarse-grained meat, 
with the flavour of jugged hare. There is no record, so far as I can 
discover, of the great bustard having visited these islands before.—John 
Bruce. (From the ‘ Field, April 15.) 
White Peewit—On the 10th of March a singular variety of the peewit 
was taken at Strettern, Cambridgeshire. The body and wings are white, 
with a feather here and there of the natural colour; the tail as in ordinary 
specimens of this bird. It has been set up by Mr. F. Doggett, naturalist, 
of Cambridge, where I had the pleasure of inspecting it.—/’. Wheeler ; 
Chesterton, Cambridgeshire. (From the ‘ Field.’) 
The Demoiselle Crane.— A bird of this species, the Grus Virgo of 
Linneus, was recently picked up dead on the banks of the River Cale, in 
this neighbourhood.—W. Herridge ; Wincanton. (Fvrem ‘ Science Gossip’ of 
March 1st.) 
Notes on a South-American Heron.— Mr. Hudson communicates the 
following notes on the little heron (Ardetta involucris) to the Zoological 
Society of London :—“ It was a small isolated bed of rushes I had seen him 
in. The mud below and for some distance around was quite bare and hard, 
so that it would have been impossible for the bird to escape without being 
perceived; and yet, dead or alive, he was not to be found. After vainly 
searching and re-searching through the rushes for a quarter of an hour, I 
gave over the quest in great disgust and bewilderment, and, after reloading. 
was just turning to go, when behold! there stood my heron on a reed no 
more than eight inches from, and on a level with, my knees. He was 
perched, the body erect, and the point of the tail touching the reed grasped 
by his feet; the long tapering neck was held stiff, straight, and vertically, 
and the head and beak, instead of being carried obliquely, were also pointing 
up. There was not, from his feet to the tip of the beak, a perceptible curve 
or inequality, but the whole was the figure (the exact counterpart) of a 
straight, tapering rush: the loose plumage arranged to fill inequalities, the 
wings pressed into the hollow sides, made it impossible to see where the 
body ended and the neck began, or to distinguish head from neck or beak 
from head. This was, of course, a front view; and the entire under surface 
of the bird was thus displayed, all of a uniform dull yellow, like that of 
a faded rush. I regarded the bird wonderingly for some time; but not the 
least motion did it make. I thought it was wounded or paralysed with 
fear, and, placing my hand on the point of its beak, forced the head down 
till it touched the back; when I withdrew my hand up flew the head, like 
a steel spring, to its first position. I repeated the experiment many times 
with the same result, the very eyes of the bird appearing all the time rigid 
and unwinking, like those of a creature in a fit. What wonder that it is so 
