226 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



LITTLE BITTERN. 



Ardetta minuta (L.). 



The late Mr. John Hancock informed me that a specimen of 

 the Little Bittern preserved in the Newcastle Museum was 

 captured on the river Petteril in the year 1850. A stray note 

 of T. C. Heysham, dated March 27, 1850, corroborates this, 

 while assigning a rather earlier occurrence to the bird. The 

 note says : ' Little Bittern. Mr. Losh this day informed me 

 that a specimen of this bird was caught close to the river 

 Petteril near Carlisle, about 3 years ago, in July, and in female 

 dress. He sent it to Mr. John Hancock of Newcastle, in whose 

 possession it now is.' I cannot vouch for any other specimen 

 having been killed at any time in Lakeland. I have however 

 identified a full-dressed male Little Bittern, which a man named 

 Steel shot on the Kirtle Water, between Kirkpatrick and Kirtle- 

 bridge, in June 1874. This specimen was obtained about six 

 miles north of our faunal limits. It is still in Mr. Steel's 

 possession. 



NIGHT HERON. 



Nycticorax griseus (L.). 



In the north-west of England the Night Heron ranks as one 

 of our rarest birds, the species having been met with only singly 

 and at long intervals. Mr. Brennan, the head keeper on Foul- 

 shaw Moss, once shot a fine Night Heron near Milnthorpe. 

 This is no doubt identical with the bird which the late Mr. 

 Anthony Mason reported to Mr. Mitchell as killed near Grange 

 in May 1848. A loose note in the handwriting of T. C. Hey- 

 sham records of this species that ' a young bird was shot on the 

 Petteril near the village of Carleton by a young man in Oct. or 

 November 1847.' A fine adult is preserved in the collection of 

 the late Mr. Proud ; if his son's memory can be relied upon, 

 after a lapse of forty years, this bird was shot at Beckfoot, 

 Brampton, about 1850. At all events, a young Night Heron 

 was killed in the Abbey Holme in 1866, and has remained ever 

 since in the possession of the Mann family, at whose house I 

 have often seen it. 



