BITTERN. 93 



by the foliage. At dusk it becomes more lively, and the male, 

 at any rate, is a noisy bird, constantly uttering- a harsh croak, 

 monotonous, and, to some ears, plaintive. A Cheshire man, 

 whose father shot a Night-Heron, said that he remembered 

 hearing it in the evening " at hay-making time, making a noise 

 hke a man vomiting." If disturbed during its diurnal rest it 

 will not always take wing, but, raising its crest in anger, strike 

 at an intruder with its bill. 



Most descriptions of plumage differ more or less from the 

 notes I made of the only one I have had opportunity of examin- 

 ing in the flesh — a mature bird killed in Anglesey at the end of 

 ]May. The head, back of neck, and back were plumbeous to 

 slate, with a distinct indigo^ not green sheen, though many skins 

 I have examined show green. The neck and breast were drab- 

 grey, the wings and tail cinereous, the forehead, a marked super- 

 ciliary stripe, and the under parts below the breast white, but 

 the last distinctly washed with yellow. There were only two 

 white plumes, one longer than the other. Along the ridge of the 

 upper mandible and at the tip of the lower the bill was black, 

 but the rest was 7'eddish fleshy and the bare skin on the lores 

 and round the eyes was daj-k green, not blue. Gould figures it 

 blue, but in nestlings it is described as sea-green. The legs 

 were ochre-yellow. The female is duller and her plumes are 

 shorter than in the male, and the young bird has no plumes 

 and is browa, streaked with buff and spotted with white on the 

 upper parts, and with the white under parts broadly streaked 

 with buff and brown. In the old bird the irides are ruby red, 

 in the young brown. Length (of bird described above), 22 ins. 

 Wing, 1 1 "25 ins. Tarsus, 31 5 ins. 



Bittern. Boiaiirus stellaris (Linn.). 



The Bittern (Plate 36) is found throughout Europe and most 

 of Asia, and is a partial migrant. In the first half of the last 



