BIRDS OF KANSAS. 117 



line with the body; iu this way they flap slowly and easily along. 

 They leave their hiding places at the approach of night, and I 

 have occasionally found them searching for food during the da}^, 

 in cloudy, rainy weather. Their food consists of minnows, 

 field mice, frogs, tadpoles, crawfish, insects and other small 

 forms of life; and as evidence of their destructive habits I will 

 say, that I found in the craw and stomach of one, shot beside a 

 a small pool of water upon overflowed land, twenty-two sun 

 fish, averaging a little over an inch in length. 



Their nests are placed on the ground, in low, marshy places, 

 built upon hummocks in the thick-growing water grasses or 

 upon the tops of of old, broken-down rushes, quite bulky, com- 

 posed of small sticks, weeds and grasses, or of rushes bitten oflf, 

 about fifteen inches in length, and loosely woven together. Eggs 

 said to be three to six (I have never found over four in a nest), 

 2.00x1.48; brownish drab; in form, oval. 



Subgenus ARDETTA Gray. 



"Extremely small; differing from the true Bittern chiefly iu their diminutive 

 size, and in the fact that the sexes differ in color." 



Botaurus exilis (Gmel.). 



LEAST BITTERN. 

 PLATE VIII. 



Summer resident; common. Arrive the last of April to first 

 of May; begin laying the last of May; return early iu September. 



B. 491. R. 498. C. 667. G. 232, 52. U. 191. 



Habitat. The whole of temperate North America, and tropi- 

 cal America to Brazil. 



Sp. Chak. *' Adult male: Pileiim, including slight occipital crest, with en- 

 tire back, scapulars, rump and tail, glossy greenish black, the outer webs of the 

 outer row of scapulars edged with pale buff, forming a narrow longitudinal 

 stripe. Sides of the head and neck bright ochraceous, deepening into reddish 

 chestnut at the nape; chin, throat and foreneck paler, the first sometimes whit^ 

 ish, with a medial series of dusky and yellowish buff dashes; the foreneck and 

 jugulum faintly striped with white and pale orange buff, the latter predominat- 

 ing; on each side the breast a patch of maroon dusky, the feathers tipped with 

 paler and suffused with blackish, forming tufts of large, loose feathers, partly 

 concealed by the large feathers of the jugulum; lower parts whitish, washed 

 with pale creamy buff. Carpal region, greater wing coverts, lower webs of ter- 



