276 AMEKICAN GAME. 



the marshes, and there lays its eggs and rears its black 

 downy young ; but several years ago, while residing at 

 Bangor, in Maine, while on a visit to a neighboring 

 heronry, situated on an island covered with a dense 

 forest of tall pines and hemlocks, I observed a pair of 

 Bitterns flying to and fro, from the tree-tops to the river 

 and back, with fish in their bills, among the herons 

 which were similarly engaged in the same interesting 

 occupation of feeding their young. One of these, the 

 male bird, I shot, for the purpose of settling the fact, 

 and we afterward harried the nest, and obtained two 

 full-grown young birds, almost ready to fly. 



Hence, I presume, that, like many other varieties of 

 birds, the Bittern adapts his habits, even of nidification, 

 to the purposes of the case, and that where no trees are 

 to be found, in which he can breed, he makes the best he 

 can of it, and builds on the ground ; but it is my opinion 

 that his more usual and preferred situation for his nest is 

 in high trees, as is the case with his congeners, the Green 

 Bittern, the blue heron, the beautiful white egret, the 

 night heron, which may be all found breeding together 

 in hundreds among the red cedars on the sea beach of 

 Cape May. The nest, which I found in Maine, was 

 built of sticks, precisely similar to that of the herons. 



The Bittern is a more nocturnal bird than the heron, 

 and is never seen, like him, standing motionless as a gray 

 stone, with his long slender neck recurved, his javelin- 



