BISTON BITTERN. 



497 



rica, too, which appears never to have had any rumi- 

 nant animals save the lamas and alpacas of the more 

 alpine district?, has proved, by the vast extent to 

 which the cattle introduced by Europeans have mul- 

 tiplied in the plains, to be well suited tor these animals, 

 while in the greater part of Europe, and also in many 

 places of Asia, the numbers of these animals in the wild 

 state, have certainly been diminishing, in situations 

 where they cannot be supposed to have vanished 

 before the progress of population and culture. The 

 unavoidable inference is that, in Europe and great 

 part of Asia, seasonal changes have taken place, and 

 taken place without any geological catastrophe of 

 which we can find a trace, or even a single circum- 

 stance which we can twist so as to render such an 

 occurrence probable, or even possible, to which 

 nothing analogous has taken place in America. The 

 bisons of the two continents are, no doubt, not the 

 same species. But if deviation from the character of 

 the common ox, which has accompanied civilisation 

 and prospered along with it, is to constitute a species, 

 the peculiar characters of the American bison, as devi- 

 ating farther from those of that animal make it of the 

 two the more characteristic of a different state of the 

 country. The field for speculation in progressive natural 

 history, which the consideration of these animals would 

 open up is both wide and curious ; but the data are few, 

 and it comes not within the scope of a popular work in 

 any other w r ay than as a subject to which attention 

 may be profitably directed. We shall, therefore, 

 only further remark here that those species of the 

 genus bos which have been sometimes classed and 

 described as bisons, and which are all natives of 

 south eastern Asia, partake more of the characters of 

 one or other of the remaining groups of the genus 

 bos than they do of those of the true bisons, whether 

 we consider the eastern species or the American as 

 the most typical. 



BISTON (Leach. Amphidasis, Treitschke, Du- 

 ponch). A genus of lepidopterous insects belonging 

 to the family of the Gcometridte or Loopers. The 

 body is much more robust than in the generality of 

 the family ; indeed this circumstance combined with 

 the strongly leathered antenna; in the males might 

 easily lead the tyro to arrange the insects composing 

 the genus amongst the bombycuhe, or feathered full 

 bodies, as they are called ; the females, however, 

 have the antennae quite simple ; the palpi are very 

 short and clothed with minute hairs, the spiral organ 

 usually termed the tongue is very short, the thorax is 

 stout and very woolly ; the wings, which exist in both 

 sexes, are of small size compared to the robustness of 

 the body. The caterpillars which are decidedly loopers 

 or geometers (moving along with a motion somewhat 

 like that of a pair of compasses alternately opened 

 and shut) have ten legs ; they are long, cylindric, and 

 more or less covered with warty excrescences, which 

 give them the appearance, when stretched out at 

 length, of a twig of the trees upon which they feed ; 

 the head is flattened and somewhat notched in front, 

 and the chrysalis is not enclosed in a cover. This 

 state is passed under ground. The type of the genus 

 is the oak beauty moth, B. prodromaritu, a handsome 

 and not uncommon species, measuring nearly two 

 inches in expanse, having the wings of a whitish 

 colour, freckled with dark brown, the upper pair hav- 

 ing two irregularly waved bands of reddish chocolate 

 edged with black. It appears early in the spring. 

 The other species included by Stephens and Dupon- 

 NAT. HIST VOL. I. 



chel are B. bctulanus, the peppered moth, and B. 

 /.'ii-tariiix, the brindled beauty. 



B ITT AC US (Latreille). A curious genus of 

 neuropterous insects belonging to the family of the 

 J'nnoiyridce, having for its type the Paiwrpa tipulann 

 of Linnaeus. The wings are long and narrow, four 

 in number, of an equal size, and carried when at rest 

 horizontally upon the back; three ocelli; antenme 

 very slender ; the abdomen is long and slender, and 

 nearly alike in both sexes ; the males not being armed 

 with the remarkable claw which is so peculiarly cha- 

 racteristic of the genus panorpa, and which has sug 

 grsted the name of scorpion-flies for the insects of that 

 genus. The legs are long, and terminated by a single 

 tarsal claw. The species are very few. In all, how- 

 ever, there is exhibited the same striking resemblance 

 to the dipterous tipulidas, which is commemorated in the 

 name of the species serving as the type of the genus, 

 and which is an inhabitant of southern Europe. We 

 believe that nothing is known respecting their habits, 

 BITTERN (Botaurus). A genus of birds, usually 

 included in the order Grallidte, yet not much in 

 the habit of wading, though they -are frequenters of 

 marshy places, and dwellers and nestlers in tall 

 aquatic herbage. 



In the systems of ornithology, these birds have 

 been very generally classed with the herons ; but 

 their appearance, their structure, their habit?, and 

 their whole characters are so very different from 

 these, and indeed from all other birds, that there 

 are few genera in the class which admit of more 

 distinct definition and description ; and their affinities 

 or points of resemblance connect them much more 

 with the rails or gallinules than with any other race. 



They are birds of peculiar manners and haunts, and 

 therefore they are characteristic of peculiar states of 

 those districts in which they are found. They shun 

 the abodes of man and the places which he improves 

 by his culture ; not merely the corn field and the rich 

 meadow, but the coppice and the wood ; and if the 

 habitation of bitterns is surrounded by planting, the 

 birds take their departure : neither are they ever found 

 in the natural forests, unless where these are inters- 

 persed with marshy pools margined with tall and close 

 aquatic herbage. There is no music for the bitterns' 

 ear in the songs of the groves ; and even if the air is 

 free and fine enough for the. sky-lark, the bittern 

 comes not there. Nay, the nightly monotonous cry of 

 the corn-crake : similar as the birds are in their ap- 

 pearance and in many of their habits, the bittern 

 comes not to those moist fields and meadows where 

 it. is heard. The wail of the lapwing, the whistle of 

 the plover, the scream of the curlew, and the bleating 

 of the snipe, are the only voices of birds in chorus 

 with which the bittern will join its booming and 

 somewhat dismal sound. And with the exception of 

 the snipe, even these dwell in the neighbourhood of 

 the bittern, and not in its immediate haunts. In the 

 mode of their inhabiting, more especially in the 

 breeding season, which, in the case of all birds, nui y 

 be regarded as the most characteristic one, there is 

 more resemblance between the bitterns and the 

 snipes, than between them and any other birds. 

 There is also a considerable degree of resemblance 

 in the outline of the body, and in the tints and even 

 the markings of the plumage -, though the brown on 

 the bittern is more inclining to red, and comes nearer 

 to the general hue of the corn-crake than that of pr<>- 

 bablv any other bird. The feet also indicate a bird 

 Q Q 



