COMMON BITTERN. 169 
straight up, as one might naturally suppose, and not 
buried in the mud or the hollow of a reed stem, after 
the quaint conceit of former naturalists. A remarkable 
fact, also, with reference to the nesting habits of 
this species, is mentioned by Mr. Lubbock, who states 
that in two instances in which four young were dis- 
covered in the nest, “two were apparently much older 
than the others.” One pair being described “as more 
than half-grown, and the other pair covered with 
nestling down and but a few days hatched.” Might 
not this be owing, as is here generally believed by 
country people to be the case with the heron, to the 
second set of eggs being hatched by the young of the 
first brood ? 
By some writers the bittern is described as ascending 
at times in spiral curves like the heron, till almost lost 
in the clouds,* but to this habit I can find no reference 
in our local authors; Mr. Lubbock, however, states that 
one compelled to rise “ in the full blaze of a July noon, 
flew hither and thither as if quite dazzled and confused 
by so much light.” 
As a migrant the bittern is a regular, and in severe 
seasons very numerous, winter visitant, a fact which has 
become much more apparent since its extinction as a 
resident species. Indeed, it is not improbable that in 
* Thompson, in his “ Birds of Ireland,” assumes that from this 
habit, the bittern acquired its specific name of stellaris, but from 
the following note kindly supplied me by Mr. Alfred Newton, this 
term seems rather to have originated from its speckled or starry 
plumage. ‘ Gesner, so far as I know the first man who called this 
bird stellaris, says, (Hist. Anim. iii, p. 208, ed. 1555) ‘Ardea 
stellaris Aristoteli et Plinio memoratur, ’astepias Greece cog- 
nominata, quod punctis tanquam stellis eleganter picta distinc- 
taque sit.’”” Aldrovandus in 1599, evidently quotes Gesner on 
this point; and Linneus, who also quotes Gesner, adopted the 
name of stellaris. 
Z 
