48 ARDEA MINOR. 



sound for which the Kuropean bittern is so remarkable. 

 This circumstance, with its <rnat inferiority of xj/e, 

 and difference of marking, sufficiently prove them t he 

 two distinct species, although, hitherto, tlie jin-.-ent has 

 been rl;ts>rd as a mere vari< tv 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, laying- 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 t 

 and are then easily shot down, as they fly heavily. 

 Like other night birds, their sight is most acute during- 

 the evening 1 twilight ; but their hearing is, at all times, 

 exquisite. 



The American bittern is twenty-seven inches long 1 , 

 and three feet four inches in extent ; from the point of 

 the bill to the extremity of the toes, it measures three 

 feet; the bill is four inches long; the upper mandible, 

 black : the lower, greenish yellow ; lores and eyelids, 

 yellow ; irides, bright yellow ; upper part of the head, 

 flat, and remarkably depressed; the plumage there is of 

 a deep blackish brown, long behind and on the neck, the 

 general colour of which is a yellowish brown shaded 

 with darker ; this long plumage of the neck the bird 

 can throw forward at will, when irritated, so as to give 

 him a more formidable appearance; throat, whitish, 

 streaked with deep brown ; from the posterior and 

 lower part of the auriculars, a broad patch of deep 

 black passes diagonally across the neck, a distinguished 

 characteristic of this species ; the hack is deep brown, 

 barred and mottled with innumerable specks and streaks 

 of brownish yellow; quills, black, with a leaden h>s, 

 and tipt with yellowish brown ; leirs and feet, yellow, 

 ti nired with pale green; middle claw, pectinated; belly, 

 light yellowish brown, streaked with darker; \ 

 plain; thighs, sprinkled on the outside with urai; 

 dark brown ; male and female, nearly alike, the latter 

 somewhat less. According to Bewick, the tail of the 

 European bittern contains only ten feathers; the Arae- 



