172 
ARDEID^. 
the back and wings look rather too dark^ and I could hypercri- 
tically have wished the quills and tail shown of a uniform colour^ 
as in this respect they so obviously differ from the same parts in 
the common species, in which they are banded. In figures of so 
small a size, however, characters like these can be but partially 
attended to. 
The first Ardea lentiginosa which occurred in Europe was (as is 
well known to ornithologists) described by Montagu under this 
name ; it was killed in Dorsetshire in the autumn of 1804. A 
second was made known by Dr. E. Moore, as shot near Plymouth 
on the 22nd of Dec. 1829. Notice of a third, obtained near 
Christ-church in 1836, was communicated to Mr. Yarrell, who 
has likewise been told of a bird, believed to be of this species, 
having been procm^ed in the Isle of Man ; but the season or year 
is not mentioned. About the middle of October, 1844, the only 
one obtained in Scotland was killed on the property of Sir Win. 
Jardine, Bart., in Dumfries-shire, and at a very appropriate time, 
when Mr. Gould, the well-known ornithologist, was on a visit at 
Jardine Hall — where, too, I lately had the pleasure of seeing the 
specimen. These are all the examples known to have occurred in 
Great Britain. 
[In the same month (Eeb. 1846) in which the preceding ap- 
peared in the Annals, the Zoologist contained a notice of one of 
these bitterns having been killed about the 8th of Dec. 1845, in 
the vicinity of Eleetwood, Lancashire.*] 
There is no record of the species having been procured on the 
continent of Europe, inTemminck^s ‘' Manuel,^ &c. (vol. iv. 1840) ; 
Keyserling and Blasius^ ^ Wirbelthiere Europas ’’ (1840); orSchle- 
geFs ^ Bevue Critique des Oiseaux d^Europe'’ (1844), — a circum- 
stance which, like the fact of other American species having been 
obtained in the British Islands, and not farther to the eastward, 
strengthens the circumstantial evidence in favour of such birds 
having really crossed the Atlantic. Three out of the four birds, 
the date of whose occurrence in the British Islands is known 
* Contributed by Mr. James Cooper of Preston, who gives a description of the 
specimen, (p. 1248.) 
