802 GREEN HERON. 



This mode of life, requiring little fatigue where game is so plenty, as 

 is generally the case in all our marshes, must be particularly pleasing 

 to the bird ; and also very interesting, from the continual exercise ot 

 cunning and ingenuity necessary to circumvent its prey. Some of the 

 naturalists of Europe, however, in their superior wisdom, think very 

 differently ; and one can scarcely refrain from smiling at the absurdity 

 of those writers, who declare, that the lives of this whole class of birds 

 are rendered miserable by toil and hunger ; their very appearance, 

 according to Buffon, presenting the image of suffering anxiety and 

 iiidigence.* 



When alarmed, the Green Bittern rises with a hollow guttural scream ; 

 does not fly far, but usually alights on some old stump, tree or fence 

 adjoining, and looks about with extended neck ; though sometimes this 

 is drawn in so that his head seems to rest on his breast. As he walks 

 along the fence, or stands gazing at you with outstretched neck, he has 

 the frequent habit of jetting the tail. He sometimes flies high, with 

 doubled neck, and legs extended behind, flapping the wings smartly, 

 and travelling with great expedition. He is the least shy of all our 

 Herons ; • and perhaps the most numerous and generally dispersed : 

 being found far in the interior, as well as along our salt marshes ; and 

 everywhere about the muddy shores of our mill-ponds, creeks and large 

 rivers. 



The Green Bittern begins to build about the twentieth of April ; 

 sometimes in single pairs in swampy woods ; often in companies ; and 

 not unfrequently in a kind of association with the Qua-birch, or Night 

 Herons. The nest is fixed among the branches of the trees ; is con- 

 structed wholly of small sticks, lined with finer twigs, and is of con- 

 siderable size, though loosely put together. The female lays four eggs, 

 of the common oblong form, and of a pale light blue color. The young 

 do not leave the nest until able to fly ; and for the first season, at least, 

 are destitute of the long pointed plumage on the back ; the lower parts 

 are also lighter, and the white on the throat broader. During the whole 

 summer, and until late in autumn, these birds are seen in our meadows 

 and marshes, but never remain during winter in any part of the United 

 States. 



The Green Bittern is eighteen inches long, and twenty-five inches in 

 extent ; bill black, lighter below, and yellow at the base ; chin and nar- 

 row streak down the throat yellowish white ; neck dark vinaceous red ; 

 back covered with very long tapering pointed feathers, of a hoary green, 

 shafted with white, on a dark green ground ; the hind part of the neck 

 is destitute of plumage, that it may be the more conveniently drawn in 

 over the breast, but is covered with the long feathers of the throat, and 



* Hist. Nat. des Oiseaux, tome xxii., p. 343. 



