THE COMMON BITTERN. 93 



almost uniform, but the plumes on the sides of the neck 

 narrowly barred with black, and widened into a frill which 

 covers the hind-neck, the latter being clothed with dense 

 down of a tawny-buff colour ; the feathers below the eye, and 

 a streak along the cheeks, and down the sides of the neck, 

 black ; a malar line of feathers and the throat creamy-white, 

 with a central line of reddish-buff feathers, slightly mottled 

 with black bases ; the lower throat also creamy-white, with 

 four or five tolerably defined broad lines of tawny-buff and 

 black mottled feathers; the lower part of the ruff on the fore- 

 neck with narrow wavy lines of black ; the breast covered with 

 tawny-buff down, concealed by a large patch of loose plumes 

 on each side of the chest, these being mostly black with tawny- 

 buff margins ; remainder of under surface creamy-white, 

 streaked with black centres to the feathers, the black mark- 

 ings slightly broken up with tawny-buff mottlings, the thighs 

 and under tail-coverts scarcely marked at all ; under wing- 

 coverts and axillaries tawny-buff, the former narrowly lined 

 with blackish, the axillaries more distinctly barred with dusky- 

 blackish ; bill greenish-yellow ; bare loral space yellowish- 

 green ; feet yellowish-green, the claws dark brown ; iris yellow. 

 Total length, 24 inches; culmen, 275; wing, 13*0; tail, 4*4; 

 tarsus, 3*8. 



Adult Female.— Similar to the male. 



Young. — Does not differ from the adults, except that the 

 primary-coverts and quills are nearly uniform, with only a 

 certain amount of rufous mottlings on the inner webs. 



Nestling. — Covered with down of a yellowish-buff colour. 



Kange in Great Britain. — The Bittern used to be one of our 

 native birds, but the gradual draining of the meres and 

 swamps has resulted in the extinction of the species as a 

 breeding-bird in Great Britain. Even now, however, a little 

 protection afforded to the Bitterns which visit us in spring 

 would doubtless re-establish the species in England, and then, 

 as Mr. Howard Saunders remarks, " the 'boom ' of the Bittern 

 might again be heard in our land." It occurs at intervals in 

 winter and spring in different parts of the three kingdoms, 

 and within recent years I have seen specimens shot in the 

 Thames Valley. 



