Genus LXIX. ARDEA. HERON. 



Species I. .(. MINOR. 



AMERICAN BITTERN. 



[Plate LXV. Fig. 3.] 



T^e Butor de la Baye d' Hudson, Briss. v., p. 449, 25. — Buff, vii., p. 430. — Edw. 

 136, var. A. — Lath. Syn. in., p. 58. 



This is a nocturnal species, common to all our sea and river marshes, 

 though nowhere numerous ; it rests all day among the reeds and rushes, 

 and unless disturbed, flies and feeds only during the night. In some 

 places it is called the Indian Hen, on the sea coast of New Jersey it is 

 known by the name of Dunkadoo, a word probably imitative of its 

 common note. They are also found in the interior, having myself killed 

 one at the inlet of the Seneca Lake, in October. It utters at times a 

 hollow guttural note among the reeds ; but has nothing of that loud 

 booming sound for which the European Bittern is so remarkable. This 

 circumstance, with its great inferiority of size, and difference of mark- 

 ing, sufiiciently prove them to be two distinct species, although hitherto 

 the present has been classed as a mere variety of the European Bittern. 

 These birds, we are informed, visit Severn river, at Hudson's Bay, about 

 the beginning of June ; make their nests in swamps, laying four cine- 

 reous-green eggs among the long grass. The young are said to be at 

 first black. 



These birds, when disturbed, rise with a hollow Tcwa, and are then 

 easily shot down, as they fly heavily. Like other night birds their sight 

 is most acute during the evening twilight ; but their hearing Is at all 

 times exquisite. 



The American Bittern is twenty-seven inches long, and three feet 

 four inches in extent ; from the point of the bill to the extremity of the 

 toes it measures three feet ; the bill is four inches long, the upper man- 

 dible black, the lower greenish yellow ; lores and eyelids yellow ; irides 

 bright yellow ; upper part of the head flat, and remarkably depressed ; 

 the plumage there is of a deep blackish brown, long behind and on the 

 neck, the general color of which is a yellowish brown shaded with 

 darker ; this long plumage of the neck the bird can throw forward at 

 will, when irritated, so as to give him a more formidable appearance ; 



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