VERTEBRATE ANIMALS OF LEICESTERSHIRE. 197 
in mystery, unless indeed the actual specimen can be discovered.* 
Iam informed by Henry Long, keeper at Bosworth Park, that 
some years ago a single pair of Herons built a nest there. There 
was a solitary nest also in Buddon Wood in 1885, and another 
the same year at Bradgate. For several seasons a pair nested 
in a wood at Belvoir. On May 5th, 1884, I went over to Staple- 
ford Park, by permission of the Rev. B. Sherard Kennedy, to see 
the heronry, and if possible procure a pair of old birds with the 
nest and young for the Museum. I found the heronry had 
increased since Harley’s time, from forty to fifty nests being 
built in high elms and spruce firs on an island in the lake, to 
which the keeper rowed me. Nests and birds were so plentiful, 
and the latter doing so much damage to the fishery, that the 
keeper asked me to shoot several, and firing altogether nine rifle 
shots I bagged eight birds, five of which—including two large 
young ones—are, with their nests and an egg (picked up from 
the ground) in the Leicester Museum, mounted in a plate-glass 
case, six feet cube, the nests being embellished with the leaves 
and buds of the elm carefully reproduced by modelling on the 
natural twigs. 
Ardetta minuta (Linn.). Little Bittern.—A very rare visitant, 
which, according to Harley, ‘‘ has once occurred, namely on the 
banks of Groby Pool at the close of the summer of 1858.” 
Nyctocorax griseus (Linn.). Night Heron.—Like the last- 
named, a very rare visitant, of which Harley says :—‘‘ An ex- 
ample occurred a few years since in the lordship of Ansty, and was 
shot by a countryman as it was sitting on the top of a pollard 
willow bya pool. I examined it shortly after capture. Mention 
is made of another bird having been shot in the year 1846, at 
Donnington, as I gather from the manuscript of the Rev. Arthur 
Evans.” 
Botaurus stellaris (Linn.). Bittern.-—An accidental visitant. 
Potter, in his ‘ History of Charnwood Forest,’ says, ‘‘One was shot 
near Ashby in 1834, by the late Mr. Joseph Cantrell; another, 
killed at Wanlip, is in the possession of Sir George J. Palmer, 
Bart.; a third, shot at Glenfield, is in the possession of C. Win- 
stanley, Esq., of Braunston Hall.” Widdowson writes that 
he has *‘ known about six killed in his neighbourhood in about 
* In our opinion the bird in question is more likely to have been a 
Spoonbill, Platalea lewcorodia,—Ep, 
