° 1911 J Brewster, Nuptial Plumes of Bitterns. 99 



Zoology have them pure white and better developed than in 

 any example of B. lentiginosus that I have ever seen. They are 

 less conspicuous and decidedly yellowish in a third bird belonging 

 to the National Museum. I have failed to find obvious traces of 

 them in the European Bittern (B. stellaris) but that may be merely 

 because I have thus far seen no male of this species which was 

 certainly adult and in full nuptial plumage. An allied species, 

 the Botaurus poeciloptilus of Australia, New Caledonia and New 

 Zealand, has hidden tufts of plumes situated like those of the 

 American birds but made up more largely of true and fully de- 

 veloped feathers (there are downy ones also), yellowish brown in 

 color with conspicuous darker markings. Whether or not these 

 feathers are ever shown in the form of ruffs must remain doubtful 

 until some one has settled the point by watching the living bird. 

 I have found them only in what appear to be adult males, of which 

 I have seen four or five. 



When, in November last, extracts from the present paper were 

 read by me at the meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union 

 in Washington I was not aware that the possession, by the male 

 Bittern, of white plumes ordinarily concealed but sometimes 

 conspicuously shown in the form of ruffs had ever attracted the 

 attention of any one prior to the time (April, 1910) when my ob- 

 servations were made at Concord. At the close of this meeting, 

 however, Mr. Francis Harper (who attended it) informed me that 

 he had seen a Bittern showing white some five years previous to 

 the date of our conversation. He has since written me that he 

 is "very sorry to find" that he has preserved only "exceedingly 

 fragmentary" notes relating to his experience. It happened he 

 states "in the Ithaca marshes," New York, "on May 11, 1905," 

 when he "observed a most strange-looking Bittern with what 

 appeared to be two white shoulder patches joined by a narrow 

 strip over the back. The bird was skulking about in a clump of 

 low cattails at a distance of about a hundred yards." Its white 

 patches " appeared roughly circular and about four or five inches 

 in diameter." They were not seen to "change in size" nor was it 

 noticed "that they projected from the bird's body." Mr. Harper 

 "was inclined then to consider this as merely a case of partial 

 albinism." 



