HERODIONES A RDEIDÆ.
A r d ea g a r z e t ta , Linnaeus.*
THE LITTLE EGRET.
Ardea garzetta.
T h e L it t l e E gr e t is one of tlie rarest stragglers to the
British Islands, and some of tlie records of its reported occurrence
are far from being satisfactory.! Templeton, in his
‘ Catalogue of the Vertebrate Animals of Ireland,’ says of
* Ardea Garzetta, Linnæus, Syst. Nat. Ed. 12, i. p. 237 (1766).
t The often quoted passage from Pennant, identifying with this species the
thousand ‘ Egrittes ’ served at Archbishop Nevill’s entlironization-feast, in the
time of Edward IV., is probably founded on an error. As suggested by
Fleming, and accepted by Selby, the birds were, no doubt, Lapwings. The word
aigrette (whence Egret) is probably derived from the Italian aghirône, a heron :
Provençal aigro ; and has acquired the meaning of a tuft of feathers.
this bird, “ There is a specimen in the Dublin Museum,
which was shot in the harbour of Cork, in 1792” ; and
Thompson states that there is an entry in the Donation
Book of the University Museum of that city, dated December,
1788, recording the presentation by the Rev. J. Elgee, Wexford,
of “ a bird of the species called the Small White Heron,
whose present existence in the British Islands has been
doubted.” These specimens have long since disappeared.
Little reliance can be placed upon the statement in Pennant’s
‘ British Zoology ’ (Ed. 1812, ii. p. 21), “ We once
received out of Anglesey the feathers of a bird shot there,
which we suspect to be the Egret.” The Rev. Robert
Holdsworth, of Brixham, to whom the Author was indebted
for many valuable communications, sent word that in 1816
a bird was shot on Flatoars, on the river Dart, which exactly
corresponded with the description of the Egret in Montagu’s
Ornithological Dictionary as a bird of the second year, being
tinged with grey on the neck and breast. The Rev. L. Jenyns,
in his ‘Manual of British Vertebrate Animals’ (p. 188), says,
“ In April, 1824, two specimens are recorded to have been
killed at Penzance, in Cornwall, and one of them to have
been preserved” ; but Couch, in his ‘Cornish Fauna,’ only
says vaguely that one or two specimens are known, and in
the Edition of 1878, the species is omitted from his list.
However, Fox, in his ‘ Synopsis of the Newcastle Museum ’
(p. 254), quotes a letter from II. Mewburn, dated St.
Gferman’s, 7th March, 1826, in which he speaks of a pair
of Egrets obtained during the past eighteen months.
Mr. J. C. Dale, the well-known Entomologist, states (Mag.
Nat. Hist. ix. p. 598), that he had a memorandum of an
Egret having been shot near the river Stour, at Christchurch,
Hants, in the beginning of July, 1822, by the late
Mr. William Lockyer, who sold it to Mr. Barrow, of Christchurch,
by whom it was preserved.* Mr. Dale goes on to
* Mr. E. Hart of Christchurch informs the Editor that this example passed
into the hands of Capt. Cox, at whose sale Mr. Hart purchased it. He cannot
trace a bird said by Mr. Wise to have been shot near Hayle (cf. J. H. Gurney,
jun., Zool. s.s. p. 1512).