172 ardeid^e. 



the back and wings look rather too dark, and I could hypercri- 

 tically have wished the quills and tail shown of a uniform colour, 

 as in this respect they so obviously differ from the same parts in 

 the common species, in which they are banded. In figures of so 

 small a size, however, characters like these can be but partially 

 attended to. 



" The first Ardea lentiginosa which occurred in Europe was (as is 

 well known to ornithologists) described by Montagu under this 

 name ; it was killed in Dorsetshire in the autumn of 1804. A 

 second was made known by Dr. E. Moore, as shot near Plymouth 

 on the 22nd of Dec. 1829. Notice of a third, obtained near 

 Christ-church in 1836, was communicated to Mr. Yarrell, who 

 has likewise been told of a bird, believed to be of tins species, 

 having been procured in the Isle of Man ; but the season or year 

 is not mentioned. About the middle of October, 1844, the only 

 one obtained in Scotland was killed on the property of Sir Wm. 

 Jardine, Bart., in Dumfries-shire, and at a very appropriate time, 

 when Mr. Gould, the well-known ornithologist, was on a visit at 

 Jardine Hall — where, too, I lately had the pleasure of seeing the 

 specimen. These are all the examples known to have occurred in 

 Great Britain. 



[In the same month (Eeb. 1846) in winch the preceding ap- 

 peared in the Annals, the Zoologist contained a notice of one of 

 these bitterns having been killed about the 8th of Dec. 1845, in 

 the vicinity of Eleetwood, Lancashire.*] 



" There is no record of the species having been procured on the 

 continent of Europe, in Temminck's f Manuel/ &c. (vol. iv. 1840) ; 

 Keyserling and Blasius' ' Wirbelthiere Europas ' (1840); orSchle- 

 gel's f Revue Critique des Oiseaux d'Europe ' (1844), — a circum- 

 stance which, like the fact of other American species having been 

 obtained in the British Islands, and not farther to the eastward, 

 strengthens the circumstantial evidence in favour of such birds 

 having really crossed the Atlantic. Three out of the four birds, 

 the date of whose occurrence in the British Islands is known 



• Contributed by Mr. James Cooper of Preston, who gives a description of the 

 specimen, (p. 1248.) 



