1885] MAEIT^AND ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 273 



Family Aedeid^ — Bitterns and Herons. 



Botaurus lentiginosus (190). American Bittern. 



Fairly common during spring and fall, a few spend the 

 summer with us and possibly breed. It may also stay over 

 winter during mild seasons. From March 25 ('93, (jray) they 

 are numerously noted until May 5 ('93, Resler), and in fall 

 from September 1 ('91, Tylor), when one was taken at Tuck- 

 ahoe Creek until October 10 ('94), when one was caught alive 

 by Mr. Jacob Kirkwood early in the morning in front of No. 

 103 Elliott street in Baltimore City. This he kindly kept in a 

 box until I examined it. It was an ordinary sized dark 

 plumaged male. 



Mr. J. E. Tylor supplies me with the following items : 

 "Between the 20th and 30th of August, 1891, I killed a male 

 Bittern in the Adkin's woods, one mile south of Easton, and 

 mounted same. On the first day of September, 1891, Dr. E. 

 E,. Trippe, of Easton, in company with A. G. Pascault, of the 

 same town, shot a male Bittern in Tuckahoe Creek, five miles 

 below Hillsboro; this I also mounted. On July 14, 1894, on 

 Hog Creek, Gunpowder River, I flushed one from the marsh, 

 but did not secure it." 



" Mr. William H. Buller, residing at Marietta, Lancaster 

 County, Pa., in a letter dated July 29, 1889, addressed to me, 

 writes as follows : ' I am inclined to believe that the American 

 Bittern breeds in tlie vicinity of Schock's Mills, a few miles 

 west of Marietta ; while I have never found its nest, or seen its 

 young, yet I have so frequently seen the bird in that vicinity 

 during the summer, that I think it probable that it breeds 

 there'" (Birds Pa., 55). 



Dr. Coues, speaking of the District of Columbia, says : 

 "Resident and rather common" (A. C, 100), and " I have pro- 

 cured it in January at Washington " (Birds N. W. 529). 

 " Rather common from August to April at Washington " 

 (Richmond). 



