LITTLE BITTERN. 537 



common in Holland, and is found in France, Provence, and 

 Italy. It is seen at Genoa on its passage northward ; and 

 M. Necker says that it is annually observed in Switzerland, 

 where some few stop to breed. It is observed every year 

 between spring and autumn, at Corfu, Sicily, Malta, and 

 Crete. The specimen from which Edwards drew the figure 

 in his Gleanings came from Aleppo ; it inhabits Arabia, 

 and M. Hohenacker, the Russian naturalist, includes the 

 Little Bittern among the birds found in the countries 

 of the Caucasus, between the Black and the Caspian 

 Seas. 



In the adult bird, the beak, lore, and irides, are yellow ; 

 the top of the head, the occiput, the shoulders, the wing- 

 primaries, and the tail-feathers, are of a shining bluish 

 black ; all the wing-coverts buff-coloured ; the cheeks and 

 sides of the neck, throughout its whole length, buff; the 

 back of the neck is almost bare in the Bitterns, but the 

 feathers of the sides of the neck passing obliquely back- 

 wards and downwards hide the almost naked space; the 

 chin and the neck in front white, partially tinged with 

 buff; the feathers at the bottom of the neck in front are 

 elongated, but the Bitterns have no true occipital plume, 

 or elongated feathers, on the back, like the Herons ; on 

 the lower part of the neck on each side, just in advance of 

 the carpal joint of the wing, when the wing is closed, a 

 few of the feathers have dark centres with buff-coloured 

 margins ; breast, belly, thighs, and under tail-coverts, buff, 

 with a small patch of white about the vent ; under wing- 

 coverts and the axillary plume pale buff; the legs, toes, 

 and claws greenish yellow. 



Males and females, when adult, are alike in plumage. 



The whole length about thirteen inches. From the car- 

 pal joint to the end of the wing, five inches and three- 



