194 THE BIRDS OF DEVOX. 



The bird was shot by ilr. Kickards, and is, -we believe, still in that gentle- 

 man's possession at his house near k>outh Molten. The first example 

 detected in this country was one shot in the autumn of ]S04 by a Mr. 

 Cunningham not far from the river Froome, in the parish of Piddletown, 

 in Dorsetshire, which passed into the collection of Col. George, of Penrhyn, 

 in Cornwall, at whose sale it was purchased by Col. Montagu bearing the 

 label " Ardea minvta.'' This bird, which Col. Montagu at ouco detected 

 to be a stranger, was described by him as the Freckled Ueron, and is now 

 in the National Collection at South Kensington, where we have noted it 

 with a reverent interest. The only Cornish example of the American 

 Bittern (which seems to have been unknown to Mr. liodd) is one stated 

 by Dr. Bullmore, in his ' Cornish Fauna,' to have been shot at Tresamble, 

 Gweunap, Xov\ 4, 1873, and to have been sent to a bird-stuffer in Fal- 

 mouth, where the doctor, as he was kind enough to write to inform us, 

 examined it in the flesh. No other example has occurred in Dorsetshire 

 since Col. Montagu's type specimen, and we know of no instance of it in 

 the county of Somerset. 



One at Motliecombe, nenr Plymouth, December 22ncl, 1829 (Dr. E. Moore as 

 " Freckled Heron," Trans. Plym.'lnst. 18:30, p.c)l'3 ; and Mag. Kat. Hist. 1837, p. 320). 

 A young bird of the year was shot towards the end of October 1875 by Mr. Rickards, 

 on some high grounds near Parracombe, North Devon (J. G., Zool. 1875, p. 4719 ; 

 and M. A. M., op. cit. p. 4720j. 



The specimen said to have occurred at Chudleigh, and preserved in Mr. Bower 

 Scott's collection, was a Common Bittern, as that gentleman liiniself informed us. 



[American Green Heron. Butorides virescens (Linn.). 



In the late autumn of 18S9 we received information that Foot, the bird- 

 stuffer in liath, had a small species of Heron which was a stranger, and 

 jiaying him a visit we saw the bird, but were unable to identify it. 

 Being in London a week or two later we examined the skins of American 

 Herons at the South Kensington Natural History Museum, and at once 

 recognized the unknown bird as the American Green Heron, a species 

 common throughout the United States. We subsequently received full 

 particulars of its capture from its owner, Sir C. Graves Sawle, Eart., of 

 Tenrice, St. Austell, whose keeper, AV. Abbott, had shot it in Hay Bottom, 

 a swampy valley running inland from the sea, on 27th October, 1889. 

 The bird was a fine specimen, in beautiful condition, and almost in 

 perfect adult plumage. This is the first occurrence of this American 

 Heron in Europe. Its arrival on the Cornish coast is, however, no more 

 extraordinary than that of the preceding species, or of any of the numerous 

 American birds Avhich have been detected in the S.W. of England. (Zool. 

 ISyO, pp. lUo, 181.)] 



Family CICONIID^. 

 THE STORKS. 

 The Storks are greatly superior to the Herons and 



