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

134.  SPOONBILL. Platalea leucorodia, Linnaeus.  French, “Spatule blanche.”—­An occasional but by no means common visitant to the Channel Islands.  I have been able to hear of but very few instances of its occurrence or capture of late years; Mr. Couch, however, writes me, in a letter dated November, 1873, that a Spoonbill was brought to him to stuff.  In all probability this is the same bird recorded by Mr. Broughton in the ‘Field’ for October 25th, 1873, and in the ‘Zoologist’ for January, 1874.  This is the only very recent specimen I have been able to trace; but Mr. Broughton in his note mentions the occurrence of one about twenty years before; and Mrs. Jago, who, when she was Miss Cumber, did a good deal of bird-stuffing in Guernsey, told me she had stuffed a Spoonbill for the Museum about twenty years ago.  This is probably the other one mentioned by Mr. Broughton, and he may have seen it in the Museum; it is not there, however, now—­either having become moth-eaten, and consequently thrown away, or lost when the Museum changed its quarters across the market-place.  Mr. MacCulloch does not seem to consider the Spoonbill such a very rare visitant to the Channel Islands, as he writes to me, “The Spoonbill is not near so rare a visitor as you seem to think; specimens were killed here in 1844, and in previous years, and again in 1849, and in October, 1873.[23] They are seldom solitary, but generally appear in small flocks.  I forget whether it was in 1844 or 1849 that flocks were reported to have been seen in various parts of England, even as far west as Penzance.  I think that in one of these years as many as a dozen were seen here in a flock.”  Mr. Rodd, in his ‘List of the Birds of Cornwall,’ does not mention either of these years as great years for Spoonbills, only saying, “Occasionally, and especially of late years, observed in various parts of the county; a flock of several was seen and captured at Gwithian; others have been obtained from the neighbourhood of Penzance, and also from Scilly."[24]

The Spoonbill is included in Professor Ansted’s list, and marked as occurring in Guernsey.  There is no specimen at present in the Museum, the one stuffed by Miss Cumber having, as above mentioned, disappeared.

135.  WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. Anser albifrons, Scopoli.  French, “Oie rieuse, ou a front blanc.”—­None of the Grey Geese seem common in Guernsey; neither the Greylag, the Bean, nor the Pink-footed Goose have, as far as I am aware, been obtained about the Islands, nor have I ever seen any either alive or in the market, where they would be almost sure to be brought had they been shot by any of the fishermen or gunners about the Islands.  There is one specimen, however, of the White-fronted Goose in the Museum, which I have reason to believe was killed in or near Guernsey; and this is the only specimen of this Goose which, as far as I am aware, has been taken in the Islands.