BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 237 
records one shot near Dumfries on January 7th, 1858.* 
In November, 1869, William Hastings received a Bittern for 
preservation from the vicinity of Lochmaben,t and another 
was shot there at the end of 1873.$ Mr. John Jardine shot a 
Bittern at the Kirk Loch (Lochmaben) in November, 1875, 
and " one was heard for some days uttering its travelling 
call at some places near Lockerbie in January, 1880."§ 
H. A. Macpherson in a letter to Mr. R. Service refers 
to a Bittern on the Scottish side of the Solway in 1887, 
but further details are not forthcoming. An adult male, 
obtained at Gretna on January 13th, 1894, is now in the 
Tullie House Museum, CarHsle. On January 23rd, 1902, 
a Bittern was shot by Mr. Adam Fyfe in a small marsh 
about a mile below Moffat. || 
Unfortunately there are no records of this species having 
nested in the county, and it is improbable that it has done so 
within at any rate the last hundred years. As has been seen, 
the rare occasions on which the bird has been observed more 
recently in Dumfriesshire have been in the winter-months. 
The Bittern " is generally distributed throughout Europe 
and Asia, but does not extend very far north, and in many 
of the southern countries it is known chiefly as a migrant, 
and breeds sparingly."^ 
THE AMERICAN BITTERN. 
Botaurus lentiginosus (Montagu). 
Has occurred twice. 
Yarrell records that at the end of October, 1844, Sir William 
Jardine sent him word that a specimen of the American 
* Naturalist, 1858, Vol. VIII., p. 117. 
t Dumfries Courier, December 7th, 1869. 
% Kirkcudbright Advertiser, December 19th, 1902. 
§ Loc. cit. 
II Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., 1892, p. 137. 
II Lloyd's Nat. Hist., 1896, Vol. III., p. 94. 
