487 
like the instance I recorded in last year’s ‘Transactions’ (p. 323) 
of a short-eared owl being killed when attacking a lapwing, seems 
to indicate that these birds prey on something more than rats, 
mice, and small birds. It may be urged, however, in their favour,, 
if accused of killing game, that these occurrences took place in 
the months of March and April, when undoubtedly neither rats 
nor mice would be so accessible as on the closely mown marshes 
in autumn and winter. A bird of this species was shewn me by 
a Norwich birdstuffer, which had been brought to him in the llesh 
as early as the 3rd of August, and was said to have been killed 
close to the city, near the Newmarket lioad. 
VIII. 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
Supposed Occurrence op tiie Squacco Heron in this 
Country in Winter. — In 1820, a squacco heron was caught 
in a bow-net, which a fisherman, following the calling of his 
trade, had hung out to dry at Ormesby broad in Norfolk. It 
was the second specimen recognised in Britain. A rather par- 
ticular interest attaches to it not only for this reason, and not 
only from the singular mode of its capture, but because of the 
time of the year when it happened, for according to statements 
made in Pagets’ * Natural History of Yarmouth ’ (p. 7), and 
‘The Globe’ London Newspaper of December 4th, 1820, it 
was killed iu the middle of winter, viz., in the month of 
December, and this account has met with support from Mr. 
Stevenson (see ‘ B. of Norf.’, ii, p. 132), who, as will be seen by 
reference to his work, gives the pros and cons, and dwells at some 
length on the point. Now I think I have alighted on a passage 
in the ‘Zoologist’ which enables me to fix the real date at which 
this heron did occur ; for on turning to p. 70 of the 1st vol. I find 
a good description of the very bird by Mr. Dowell, which I think 
will show that the right date was the 20th of July, which is what 
