BRITISH BIRDS. 
0 
as weli as the iertials, is speckled with brown : the legs 
are three inches and three-quarters in length from the 
heel to the knees ; the toes are long and slender, and 
the middle claw pectinated on the inner side ; the legs 
are bare about an inch* above the knee, and these, as 
v/eil as the toes are of a greenish cast. The above is 
extracted from Mr Montagu’s description, who has 
given this bird as a new British species of the Ardea 
genus : it was shot in Dorsetshire in 1804 ; he suspects 
it to be a female, and also “ that it may prove a sexual 
distinction only of some species obscurely known.” 
* Montagu’s figure is not of this proportion, but about half an inch. 
