GENUS 69. ARDEA. HERON. 



SPECIES 1. A. MINOR. 



AMERICAN BITTERN. 



[Plate LXV. Fig. 3.] 



Le Butor de la Baye d? Hudson, BRISS. v, p. 449. 25. BUFF, vn, 

 p. 430. EDW. 136. var. Jl> LATH. Syn. in, p. 58. PEALE'S 

 Museum, No. 3727. 



THIS is a nocturnal species, common to all our sea and 

 river marshes, though no where numerous; it rests all day 

 among the reeds and rushes, and unless disturbed, flies and 

 feeds only during the night. In some places it is called the In- 

 dian Hen, on the sea coast of New Jersey it is known by the 

 name of Dunkadoo, a word probably imitative of its common 

 note. They are also found in the interior, having myself killed 

 one at the inlet of the Seneca Lake, in October. It utters at 

 times a hollow guttural note among the reeds; but has nothing of 

 that loud booming sound for which the European Bittern is so 

 remarkable. This circumstance, with its great inferiority of 

 size, and difference of marking, sufficiently prove them to be 

 two distinct species, although hitherto the present has been 

 classed as a mere variety of the European Bittern. These 

 birds, we are informed, visit Severn river, at Hudson's Bay, 

 about the beginning of June; make their nests in swamps, lay- 

 ing four cinereous-green eggs among the long grass. The young 

 are said to be at first black. 



These birds, when disturbed, rise with a hollow kwa, and 

 are then easily shot down, as they fly heavily. Like other night 

 birds their sight is most acute during the evening twilight; but 

 their hearing is at all times exquisite. 



