92 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



The True Bitterns are nearly cosmopolitan, our European 

 species being found throughout the Palaearctic Region, and 

 being replaced in Africa by an allied form, B. capensis, which 

 is a smaller bird, mottled, rather than barred, with rufous. In 

 Australia and New Zealand occurs B. pacilopterus, with brown 

 quills, and in South America a peculiar barred Bittern, B. 

 pinnatus. In North America the representative species is 

 B. lentiginosus, described below. 



I. THE COMMON BITTERN. BOTAURUS STELLARIS 



Ardea stellaris. Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 239 (1766). 



Botaurus stellar is, Macg. Br. Br. iv. p. 410 (1852); Dresser, 



B. Eur. vi. p. 281, pi. 403 (1875); B. O. U. List Br. B. 



p. in (1883); Seebohm, Br. B. ii. p. 593 (1884) ; Saun- 



ders, ed. Yarr. Br. B. iv. p. 206 (1884) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. 



Br. B. part vii. (1888); Saunders, Man. Br. B. p. 371 



(1889). 



(Plate LXIX.) 



Adult Male. General colour above tawny-yellow and black, 

 this latter colour predominating and occupying the centre of 

 the feathers, the sides of which are tawny-buff, freckled and 

 irregularly barred with black ; lower back, rump, and upper 

 tail-coverts pale tawny-buff, mottled with bars or cross-lines 

 of dusky-brown ; marginal wing-coverts rufous, regularly barred 

 across with black ; median and greater coverts tawny-buff, with 

 irregular bars or arrow-shaped markings of blackish-brown, 

 much less pronounced on the greater coverts, all of which 

 have a rufescent tinge near the base ; bastard-wing, primary- 

 coverts, and quills blackish, barred with rufous, the bars some- 

 what broken up on the inner webs of the quills, which are also 

 paler, the inner secondaries, like the scapulars, being tawny- 

 buff on their edges, and mottled in a similar manner ; the tail- 

 feathers tawny-buff, irregularly mottled with black bars or cross- 

 markings, more pronounced on the centre of the feathers ; 

 crown of head uniform black, with a frill of erectile plumes on 

 the nape, these being tipped with tawny-buff, and the pale tips 

 crossed with lines of black ; eyebrow, sides of face, and sides 

 of neck tawny-buff, the eyebrow uniform, except on the upper 

 edge, where the feathers are barred with black ; the ear-coverts 



