NOTES AND QUERIES. 181 



which had been found last summer at Binsness among the sand-hills of 

 Moray, where the birds were breeding. In the current number of ' The 

 Ibis' (for April) Prof. Newton has printed a most interesting account of 

 this discovery, accompanied by a coloured figure of the chick, faithfully drawn 

 from nature by Mr. Frohawk. To this article we refer such of our readers as 

 may not have seen it already ; and we may take the opportunity of directing 

 attention to two other important articles on the subject of the occurrence of 

 Syrrhaptes paradoxus in Scotland: one by Mr. William Evans, printed in 

 the ' Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh,' 1889 

 (pp. 106 — 126) ; the other by the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, published in a 

 small octavo pamphlet by R. H. Porter, 18, Princes Street, Cavendish 

 Square. Those who are collecting the literature relating to this bird, and 

 it has now attained considerable importance, would do well to possess 

 themselves of copies of the above-mentioned contributions before they are 

 out of print. 



Ardea virescens in Cornwall. — In 'The Zoologist' for March last 

 (p. 105) Mr. Murray Mathew reported that he had seen a small Heron, 

 which he believed to be Ardea virescens of the United States, in the shop of 

 Mr. Foot, taxidermist, of Bath, who informed him that it had been shot in 

 Cornwall during the autumn of last year. Within the last few days the 

 owner of the bird in question, Sir Charles Sawle, Bart., has been good 

 enough to bring it for my inspection, and at my suggestion it was exhibited 

 by him at the last meeting of the Linnean Society on April 17th. His 

 account of it is that on the 27th October last his keeper, William Abbott, 

 was trying for the proverbial " early Woodcock " on some low-lying ground 

 known as Hay Bottom, at Penrice, St. Austell, when the bird was 

 flushed by a spaniel which almost succeeded in catching it. The keeper 

 shot it, and, seeing that it was a bird with which he was quite unacquainted, 

 sensibly kept it to show his master, who forwarded it for preservation to 

 Foot, of Bath, as already stated. There it got labelled by some one who 

 ought to have known better, " Nankin Night Heron," which it does not in 

 the least resemble. On seeing it I had no hesitation in pronouncing it to 

 be Ardea virescens, as suggested by Mr. Mathew, although not a young bird, 

 as he supposed, but a fairly adult one. Possibly he may have regarded it as 

 immature because it does not present the brighter green colour and long 

 dorsal plumes which characterize the breeding plumage. In order to be 

 quite certain of the species, in company with Dr. Sclater aud Mr. Sharpe, 

 I compared it with a number of skins of A. virescens at the Natural History 

 Museum, when it was apparent that Mr. Murray Mathew's identification 

 was quite correct. As to how this wanderer from the United States of 

 America found its way to Cornwall, I can only hazard the conjecture that 

 it may have come off from the shore at twilight (Bitterns like Herons are 

 Tery crepuscular in their habits), and may have perched on the rigging of 



