MARCH 31, 1902 Vot. III, pp. 79-80 
PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
NEW ENGLAND ZOOLOGICAL CLUB 
ON THE OCCURRENCE OF CORY’S LEAST BEETERN 
(ARDETTA NEOXENA) IN EASTERN 
MASSACHUSETTS. 
BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 
Dr. FREDERIC N. Damon of Roxbury, Massachusetts, has 
kindly given me permission to announce that he killed a Cory’s 
Least Bittern at Scituate, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, last 
May. ‘The circumstances attending its capture were most inter- 
esting and peculiar. Dr. Damon is fond of shooting and he has a 
collection of about three hundred birds, most of which were killed 
and mounted by himself. He spends his summers at Scituate, 
where he has a small place close to the water and near the main 
road. Onthemorning of May 18, 1go1, he was at work in the 
barn, when his father, Mr. C. A. Damon, called to him that there 
was a ‘Water Rail’ in the yard. He ran out immediately, but it 
flew around the corner of the house before he could get a sight at 
it. A moment later it reappeared and, after passing directly over 
the veranda and just above the stone walls that border the road, 
alighted in a field beyond. Getting his gun, Dr. Damon hastened 
to the spot, where he came upon the bird crouching close to the 
ground with its bill pointing upward toward the sun. He 
approached within a few feet, when it took wing and he shot it. 
