ARDEID.t. 



385 



r'^ r \\ yr 



THE AMERICAN BITTERN. 



BoTAURUS LENTiGiNosus (Montagu). 



It is difficult to refuse a place in the British list to a bird which, 

 although an inhabitant of America, has been obtained on some thirty 

 occasions in our islands, and which was first distinguished as a new 

 species by Montagu, from a specimen killed in Dorsetshire in 1804. 

 Since that date examples have been recorded from Kent, Sussex, 

 Hants, Devon, Cornwall, Pembrokeshire, Anglesea, Lancashire and 

 Yorkshire ; in Scotland, from Dumfriesshire, Islay, Elgin, Aberdeen- 

 shire and Caithness ; in Ireland about twelve : from cos. London- 

 derry, Down, Armagh, Louth, Kildare, Carlow, Wexford, Tipperary and 

 Cork. As far as is known, all these, with the exception of one shot 

 in Dumfriesshire on March 25th 1878, have been obtained between 

 October and February : dates which coincide with those of the 

 bird's well-known annual migrations. Although an example was 

 killed in Guernsey on October 27th 1870, the American Bittern has 

 not yet occurred on the Continent ; but this may be accounted for 

 by the fact that the greater part of the trade across the North Atlantic 

 is to the British Islands, which are, also, the nearest land eastward. 



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