MR. J. II. GURNEY ON THE GREAT WHITE HERON. 
1S7 
poor bird-stuHer, just able to earn a livelihood, is great to palm off 
a foreign skin on some unwary dupe. Perhaps our Society will be 
of opinion that these remarks do not apply so much to the Great 
White Heron as to some birds, for the position of the Great 
White Heron is now established on a certain footing; but for long 
it was not, although as a matter of fact there was an authentic 
occurrence as far back as 1820, and since that time more or less 
misapprehension has clustered round this fine bird. Mr. Seebohm, 
writing of this species in 1884, stated that there did not appear to 
him to be any reliable instance on record “during the last thirty or 
forty years” (‘ British Birds,’ vol. ii. p. 477) ; though this was not 
the opinion of Mr. Howard Saunders, to be quoted later on; but 
I refer to it as showing the judgment of an authority on birds. 
Messrs. Halting (‘Handbook of British Birds’) and Saunders 
(‘Yarrell,’ 4th ed., and ‘Manual’) have each striven, and in a measure 
very successfully, to clear away the mist up to the date of their 
respective publications ; but another revision of the thirty-two 
so-called “occurrences” will not be deemed out of place. Mr. 
Harting’s ‘Handbook’ was printed in 1872, and he enumerated 
eighteen Great White Herons, to which list fifteen more can be 
added. We will now proceed to recapitulate these fifteen, several 
of which are mentioned by Mr. Saunders. 
One. Obtained at Strathbeg in Aberdeenshire, in 1S54, fide 
W. Horn, ‘Natural History Society,’ Glasgow, vol. iv. p. 24G. 
This is an unsatisfactory record to begin with, inasmuch as the 
bird cannot be traced, and Mr. Horn does not remember his 
authority for it, so I think we may relegate it to oblivion. 
One. Obtained at Branechoil, Loch Katrine, Perthshire ; May 
1881. Air. William Evans of Edinburgh writes that there is not 
the least doubt about its having been really got at Loch Katrine ; 
and that it was exhibited to the Loyal Physical Society of 
Edinburgh, April 20th, 1887 (Journal IX. p. 5G8). It is now 
in the Edinburgh Museum, where I have lately had the pleasure 
of seeing it. 
One. Obtained in Perthshire, in 1887, “somewhere in the 
same vicinity” as the hist (‘Scottish Naturalist,’ 1888. p. 348). 
It frequently happens when a rare bird is obtained that a legend 
springs up sometime afterwards about another : this is a phenomenon 
familiar to investigators of rare birds. 
