270 AMERICAN GAME. 



salt and black pepper quantam suff., a dozen hard-boiled 

 eggs, and a pint of scalding-hot port wine poured in just 

 before you serve up. 



What you say is perfectly true, my dear madam, 

 cooked in that manner an old India rubber shoe is good ; 

 not only would be, but is. But you'd better believe it, 

 a Bittern is a great deal better. If you don't believe 

 me, try the Bittern, and then if you prefer it, adhere to 

 the shoe. 



But now to quit his edible qualifications and turn to 

 his personal appearance, habits of life, and location, and 

 other characteristics, we will say of him, in the words of 

 Wilson, that eloquent pioneer in the natural history of 

 America, that the American Bittern, whom it pleases 

 the Count de Buffon to designate as Le Butor de la Baye 

 de Hudson, " is another nocturnal species, common to 

 all our sea and river marshes, though nowhere nume- 

 rous. 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 Indian Hen ; on the sea- 

 coast of New Jersey it is known by the name of duiikar 

 doo, 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 circum- 

 stance, with its great inferiority of size, and difference of 



