THE COMMON BITTERN. 93 



almost uniform, but the plumes on the sides of the neck 

 narrowly barred with black, and widened into a frill which 

 covers the hind-neck, the latter being clothed with dense 

 down of a tawny-buff colour ; the feathers below the eye, and 

 a streak along the cheeks, and down the sides of the neck, 

 black; a malar line of feathers and the throat creamy-white, 

 with a central line of reddish-buff feathers, slightly mottled 

 with black bases ; the lower throat also creamy-white, with 

 four or five tolerably defined broad lines of tawny-buff and 

 black mottled feathers ; the lower part of the ruff on the fore- 

 neck with narrow wavy lines of black ; the breast covered with 

 tawny-buff down, concealed by a large patch of loose plumes 

 on each side of the chest, these being mostly black with tawny- 

 buff margins ; remainder of under surface creamy-white, 

 streaked with black centres to the feathers, the black mark- 

 ings slightly broken up with tawny-buff mottlings, the thighs 

 and under tail-coverts scarcely marked at all ; under wing- 

 coverts and axillaries tawny-buff, the former narrowly lined 

 with blackish, the axillaries more distinctly barred with dusky- 

 blackish ; bill greenish-yellow ; bare loral space yellowish- 

 green ; feet yellowish-green, the claws dark brown ; iris yellow. 

 Total length, 24 inches; culmen, 275; wing, i3'o; tail, 4-4; 

 tarsus, 3 '8. 



Adult Female. Similar to the male. 



Young. Does not differ from the adults, except that the 

 primary-coverts and quills are nearly uniform, with only a 

 certain amount of rufous mottlings on the inner webs. 



Nestling. Covered with down of a yellowish-buff colour. 



Kange in Great Britain. The Bittern used to be one of our 

 native birds, but the gradual draining of the meres and 

 swamps has resulted in the extinction of the species as a 

 breeding-bird in Great Britain. Even now, however, a little 

 protection afforded to the Bitterns which visit us in spring 

 would doubtless re-establish the species in England, and then, 

 as Mr. Howard Saunders remarks, " the 'boom ' of the Bittern 

 might again be heard in our land." It occurs at intervals in 

 winter and spring in different parts of the three kingdoms, 

 and within recent years I have seen specimens shot in the 

 Thames Valley. 



