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XVII. 
NOTES ON BIRDS OBSERVED IN HERTFORDSHIRE DURING 
THE YEAR 1903 . 
By William Bickerton. 
Read at Watford , 19 th April, 1904 . 
It will be remembered that up to the close of the year 1902 the 
register of our county birds contained the names of 219 species. 
Two instances of the visits of birds not hitherto recorded for the 
county have been brought to my notice during 1903, so that the 
number now stands at 221. It may serve a useful purpose to state 
that of this number, 40 (inclusive, of the two species reported 
to-night) have been recorded as visiting our county once only, 
while 76 of the 221 have been seen less than five times. The two 
species now to be added to our list are the purple heron ( Ardea 
j purpurea ) and the black-necked or eared grebe ( Podicipes nigricollis). 
A few words about these may add to the interest of our records. 
1 . The Purple Heron ( Ardea purpurea). — A note in the 
‘Zoologist’ for March, 1903, recorded the fact that an immature 
specimen of this species had visited the w T atercress-beds at Castle 
Farm, near Harpenden, in November, 1902, and that it had been 
shot and passed on to the taxidermist. Ultimately it was secured 
for our County Museum at St. Albans. As will be surmised, the 
species is only an “accidental visitor” to the British Isles, in 
which about 50 specimens have been altogether obtained, mostly 
on the east coast of England. Only one specimen has been noticed 
in Ireland and three in Scotland. Its summer range for nesting 
purposes includes practically the whole of the countries of Southern 
Europe in which suitable marshy areas occur. Its nearest nesting 
haunts to us are the marshes of Holland, where it is not uncommon. 
It also breeds freely in the marshy districts of the Loire, in the 
Spanish Peninsula, and from Central Germany to the swampy parts 
of Southern Bussia. In the cold season it leaves the whole of the 
countries north of the Mediterranean and winters in North Africa, 
in Abyssinia, and in suitable localities so far south even as Mada¬ 
gascar and Cape Colony. Mr. H. Saunders states that “ in its 
habits the purple heron is shy, and crepuscular or even nocturnal 
in its time of feeding. From the thinness of the long, snake-like 
neck, the birds are with difficulty distinguished when they are 
standing in a reed-margined lake, nearly up to the breast in water; 
for their bodies in the shimmering sunlight exactly resemble 
tussocks of rushes. The food consists of small mammals, reptiles, 
fishes (especially eels), and aquatic insects.” The adult bird has 
the crown and long plumes glossy purplish-black—hence the name. 
The plumes, however, are absent even in the adult birds in Winter, 
and in the young birds they do not appear until after the second 
moult. The length of the adult bird is 33 inches. 
2. The Black-necked or Eared Grere ( Podicipes nigricollis ).— 
The Hon. Walter Eothschild reports that “two specimens of this 
