HER O DIO NES. A RDEIDÆ,
(
Ardea purpurea, Linnaeus.*
THE PURPLE HEKON.
Ardea purpurea.
The P urple H eron may perhaps have been known to
Sir Thomas Browne, more than two hundred years ago, as
an accidental visitant to this country, for the description of
his “ Black Heron” seems to refer to this species. In the
present century, its occurrence was first made known by
Montagu, who mentions two specimens, one of which was
shot in Ashdown Park, near Lambourn, Berks, and passed
* Syst. Nat. Ed. 12, i. p. 236 (1766).
into the Leverian Museum; and it would appear from Hunt’s
“ British Ornithology ” that an example was obtained near
Ormesby, in Norfolk, probably, as Mr. Stevenson observes,
the same bird which, in Sir William Hooker’s MS. is described
as shot at Filby in 1810. In the month of May, 1830,
according to Selby, two adults were obtained in Norfolk;
and since that date, according to Mr. H. Stevenson and Mr.
J. II. Burney, jun., the Purple Heron has occurred in that
county about seven times:—once in July, twice in September,
twice in October, once in November, and once in December;
nearly all of them being immature birds, and five of them
being obtained in the Broad district. Several have been
obtained in Suffolk, and two of these, shot near Lowestoft,
in 1838, in the Lombe collection, are in adult plumage.
In Lincolnshire one was shot on the Witliam ; and in
Yorkshire Mr. W. E. Clarke records five occurrences,
mostly in spring and summer, between 1833 and 1863. In
Nottinghamshire one was killed at Clifton, on the Trent, in
1868. In Sussex Mr. A. E. Knox records an example shot
at Worthing in September 1818; and Mr. J. C. Mansel-
Pleydell mentions two obtained in Dorset. In Devonshire
Dr. Edward Moore notices the capture of two young birds,
to which Mr. Plumptre Methuen added one shot near Plymouth,
and Mr. Batcombe found a young one hanging up
in a poulterer’s shop in Stoneliouse. The late Mr. Couch
of Polperro sent Bewick a drawing from a specimen which
alighted on a fishing boat two or three leagues from the
coast of Cornwall, and Mr. Rodd has recorded three more
examples obtained in that county, two of them in April;
and one in the Scilly Islands, in September. In Wales this
species is still more rare, but Mr. E. C. Phillips mentions
that one out of three was shot near Talybont, on the Usk,
in Breconshire. Mr. R. C. Musgrave informed Mr. Bould
that one was shot about 1850 near Alston, in Cumberland.
In Ireland the example in the Warren collection, killed at
Carrickmacross in 1834, and now in the Museum of Science
and Art, Dublin, is the only one on record. As regards
Scotland, Mr. R. Bray mentions one killed in Caithness