256 HERON TRIBE 



home ; this resemblance being intensified by the habit the bird, when 

 alarmed, has of standini^ motionless with its beak pointing; to the sky. 

 It is in this posture that the cock bittern utters during the breeding- 

 season at night its well-known booming cry, which resounded far and 

 wide over the desolate fens in the old days. During the daytime in 

 the breeding-season, and altogether at other times of the year, the 

 only sound uttered by either sex is apparently the hoarse two-syllabled 

 croaking call-note. For the greater part of the year the bittern is a 

 solitary bird, although it associates in pairs during the breeding-season, 

 and on migration frequently collects in small parties, which disperse 

 on arrival at their destination. As it is at all times difficult to flush, 

 rising with a slow heavy flight, and soon dropping again into its 

 beloved reed-brakes, which it seldom voluntarily leaves except when 

 about to migrate, the bittern is a bird of whose habits our knowledge is 

 of necessity to some extent limited. It is stated, however, that on 

 their first arrival at their breeding-swamps bitterns will sometimes 

 alight on trees when the reeds are too low to afford them sufficient 

 shelter and protection. Their food is much the same as that of herons, 

 including eels of a foot in length, fishes of half that length, water-rats, 

 frogs, insects, and a certain amount of vegetable substances. The 

 nest is a large structure of dry rushes planted on firm ground in a 

 reed-brake ; and the three to five eggs are brownish olive in colour 

 with a faint tinge of green, and measure from 2 to 2^ inches in length. 

 March and April are the laj'ing months, and the period of incuba- 

 tion appears to be about five-and-twenty days, after which the young 

 remain in the nest till they are full-fledged and nearly able to take 

 care of themselves. Only one brood appears to be produced in a 

 season ; and the individual eggs seem to be laid after an interval of 

 several days. It does not appear that the cock takes any share in the 

 task of incubation. 



American Bittern Although a native of the western hemisphere, the 

 (Botaurus American bittern is .so frequent a visitor to our 



lentijrinosus) •'chores that it is certainly entitled to a definite place 

 in the British list, more especially since it was 

 originally named and described on the evidence of a British specimen 

 killed in the year 1804. This species presents a close general appear- 

 ance to the European bittern, from which, however, it may alwa)-s be 

 distinguished by the uniformly leaden hue of the primary quills of 

 the wing, as well as by the crown of the head being brown instead of 

 black, and by the narrow irregularly concentric series of black bars 



