I had a female Bittern brought to me to be stuffed, shot in the morning in the Marais; and on the 2nd of January following another was shot on the beach near the Vale Church.  I had also part of some of the quill-feathers of a Bittern sent to me for identification by Mrs. Jago, which had been killed in the Islands the last week in January, 1879.”  These are the most recent specimens I have been able to get any account of.  The bird-stuffer in Alderney (Mr. Grieve) and his friend told me they had shot Bitterns in that island, but did not remember the date.

The Bittern is included in Professor Ansted’s list, but only marked as occurring in Guernsey.  There is no specimen in the Museum.

132.  AMERICAN BITTERN. Botaurus lentiginosus, Montagu.  French, “Heron lentigineux."[21]—­This occasional straggler from the New World has once, in its wanderings, reached the Channel Islands, and was shot in Guernsey on the 27th October, 1870, and was duly recorded by me in the ‘Zoologist’ for 1871; it is now in my collection.  This is the only occurrence of this bird in the Channel Islands yet recorded; but as the bird occasionally crosses to this side of the Atlantic—­several specimens having occurred in the British Islands—­it may possibly occur in Guernsey or some of the Channel Islands again.  It may, therefore, be as well to point out the principal distinctions between this bird and the Common Bittern last mentioned.  Between the adult birds there can be no mistake:  the longer and looser feathers on the fore part of the neck, which are slightly streaked and freckled with dark brown, may be immediately distinguished from the much shorter and more regularly marked feathers on the neck of the adult American Bittern.  This distinction, however, is not perfectly clear in young birds; but, at any age or in any state of plumage, the birds may be immediately distinguished by the primary quill-feathers, which in the American Bittern are a uniform dark chocolate-brown without any marks whatever, while in the Common Bittern they are much marked and streaked with pale yellowish brown; this may be always relied on at any age or in any plumage.

The American Bittern is not mentioned in Professor Ansted’s list, no specimen having been found in the Channel Islands till after the publication of his list, and of course there is no specimen in the Museum.

133.  LITTLE BITTERN. Ardetta minuta, Linnaeus.  French, “Heron Blongios."[22]—­I only know of one occurrence of the Little Bittern in the Channel Islands, and that was towards the end of November, 1876; and Mr. Couch writes to me as follows on the 3rd of December:  “A very good Little Bittern was caught alive in the Vale Road; after being shot at and missed by two men, a young man in the road threw his pocket-handkerchief at it and brought it in to me alive.”  Mr. Couch also informed me, when he forwarded me the specimen, that it was a male by dissection.  It is now in my collection, and is a young bird of the year.  I am rather sorry that as Mr. Couch got it alive he did not forward it to me in that state, as, unless it had been wounded by the two shots, I have no doubt I should have been able to keep it alive and observe its habits and changes of plumage as it advanced towards maturity.