97 
NIGHT HERON. 
NIGHT RAVEN. SPOTTED HERON. 
GARDENIAN HERON. LESSER ASH-COLOURED HERON. 
JAMAICA NIGHT HERON. 
Nycticorax europceus , 
Ardea nycticorax, 
“ gar deni, 
“ jamaciensis , 
“ grisea , 
“ badia , 
“ cracra , 
“ obscura , 
Stephens. 
Linnjeus. 
Gmelin. 
Gmelin. 
LlNNiEUS. 
Gmelin. 
Latham. 
Latham. 
Nycticorax. Nyx — Night. Corax—A. Raven. Europceus— European. 
This curious bird is described by most authors as a native 
of each of the four quarters of the globe. In Europe, it is 
said to be especially abundant in Hungary, and occurs also 
in Denmark and Norway, on the shores of the Baltic, and 
in France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. In Asia—in Persia, 
and the neighbourhood of the Caucasus, India, China, and 
Japan. In Africa—at the Cape of Good Hope; and in North 
America, in which latter region it is the most abundant, that 
is, if it be indeed the same species, but the Prince of Canino 
doubts their identity, and Wilson says that the American 
bird is larger than the European one. This, however, I 
believe, is the case with other species that are certainly the 
same. 
In England, one was shot near London, in 1722, and 
preserved in the Leverian Museum, the collection of Sir 
Ashton Lever. One near Thame, in Oxfordshire, by Lord 
Kirkwall, in 1798; one was shot in Norfolk, in May, 1824, 
out of the North Gates, Yarmouth; it was perched on a 
VOL. v. H 
