GREEN BITTERN. 341 



sated, its stomach gorged with prey, it often rests on 

 some dry tree in the vicinity, whence it is less 

 willing to fly, and may often be approached and 

 shot with ease. 



Near where the Sweet River roars and boils 

 beneath the bridge, on the road from Bluefields 

 to Savanna le Mar, there runs along by the side of 

 the road, a narrow stream with grassy banks. As I 

 was riding by, one day in July, I observed one of 

 these Bitterns on the bank. It was not sufficiently 

 alarmed to take flight as I passed, and I therefore 

 drew up under the shade of a cocoa-nut palm on the 

 other side to watch it. A few minutes it remained 

 in suspicious stillness, eyeing me askant. At 

 length with much deliberation it walked towards 

 the edge, where it stood, intently watching the 

 grass and short reeds that fringed the side. Pre- 

 sently it picked something from a stalk of grass, 

 which it swallowed ; it then waded slowly into the 

 stream till the water reached above the tarsus, and 

 there stood gazing motionless, except that now and 

 then it suddenly altered the direction of its glance. 

 A quick stroke of its powerful beak brought up 

 something of considerable size, with which it walked 

 ashore ; it dropped its prey on the grass, and began 

 to pick from it. Wishing to know what it was, 

 I drove the bird away, but it was cunning enough 

 to pick up its booty and carry it off, so that I was 

 none the wiser. It was probably a root of some 

 aquatic plant. The Bittern, however, soon re- 

 turned, and taking its former place, resumed the 

 occupation of picking insects from the grass, that 



