18G MR. J. H. GURNEY ON THE GREAT WHITE HERON. 
nest at Hunstanton, I deducted eight years from the date of 
Mr. Downes’ pencil note, thus arriving at the year 1820 as the 
date of the last eyrie ; but I see Mr. Harting has taken the date of 
the publication of Sebright’s book, two years before the MS. was 
given to Downes, and arrives at the year 1818 as the date of this 
interesting event. Of course Mr. Harting’s mode of reckoning is 
the correct one, and I gladly adopt his conclusion. Mundford, 
in his £ Guide to Hunstanton,’ says, that year after year the young 
Peregrines “were taken and trained to falconry, by Mr. Downes 
of Gunton, in Suffolk ; till at length worn out by their constant 
persecution, they forsook the place in 1821.” I do not know what 
■was Mr. Mundford’s authority for this date. 
John Pells, the last of the Dutch race of falconers, but who was 
born in Norfolk (‘Fauna of Norfolk,’ 2nd edition, p. 229) died at 
Lakenheath, on the 24th March, 1883, aged sixty-eight years; a 
biographical notice of him will be found in the ‘Field’ for the 
31st of March in that year (p. 431). 
VI. 
A REVISION OF THE RECORDED OCCURRENCES 
OF THE GREAT WHITE HERON, 
ARDEA ALBA (LINN.), IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
By J. II. Gurney, F.L.S., F.Z.S., Vice-President. 
Read dJ^th February, 1891. 
There are certain birds which have every right, as occasional 
visitants, to claim enrolment in the British List; but as to whether 
they have been taken three, five, or ten times, nobody is certain, 
because so many spurious records spring up, — cases of wrong 
locality, cases of mistaken identity, cases even of fraud ; against all 
of which we have to be on our guard. No gentleman would say a 
bird was killed in England if it was not ; but the temptation to a 
