THE OOLOGIST 



323 



The American Bittern. 



A few of the remaining sportsmen, 

 Ed. Fish, Arthur Bissell and others, 

 will recollect that the American Bit- 

 tern (of which a true picture is here 

 copied from Audubon's great work, in 

 possession of the Buffalo Society of 

 Natural Science) in earlier days was 

 quite abundant. Squaw Island was 

 then covered with high elms and wil- 

 lows, and a sawmill stood at the head 

 of the island, and Rattlesnake Island 

 was also covered with trees. At Sea- 

 jaquada Creek, on the left side of Del- 

 aware street, was Alberger's slaughter 

 house, and opposite was a large farm 

 house. In the rear of Stony Point was 

 the West Seneca swamp, now entire- 

 ly covered by the Lackawanna steel 

 plant and the Village of Lackawanna 

 All along here such sportsmen as 

 Charles Gerber, Steve Roberts, Jona- 

 than Sidway, Bob Newell, George Har- 

 ris, Lewis Kobler, Charles and Julius 

 Weiss, Peter Heinz, Louis Newman 

 and others, now all gone to the happy 

 hunting grounds, in spring shooting 

 encountered the American Bittern, but 

 hardly ever took notice of it, much 

 less to shoot it. 



The grounds necessary to the bit- 

 tern, are now in more remote places. 

 They can be found in the Bowmans- 

 ville and the faroff Tonawanda 

 swamps. In the Tonawanda swamp 

 their habitation may not last for many 

 years, if the project to reclaim the 

 swamp is carried out. 



The upper parts of the American 

 bittern are brown, profusely mottled 

 and freckled with buff and ochre on 

 neck, and under parts tawney white or 

 ochery; each feather with a dark 

 edged stripe, the throat line white 

 with brownish streaks; a velvet black 

 streak on each side of neck; crown and 



tail brown; a buff stripe over the eye; 

 quill feathers greenish black, tipped 

 with brown; bill, pale yellowish; 

 legs, greenish yellow, iris yellow. It 

 varies greatly in dimensions: length 

 23 to 34 inches; extent, 32 to 45 inches. 

 The female is smaller. 



A set of eggs varies from three to 

 six, and they vary greatly in size and 

 color. Tlfe bittern arrives in this lo- 

 cality from April 10th to 20th, and at 

 once looks for a nesting site which is 

 most of the time in a patch of swamp 

 vegetation. In the middle of this the 

 nest is constructed from dry stalks of 

 tules and swam]) grasses about four 

 to six inches above the surrounding 

 set swamp. This nest is about a foot 

 in diameter. From the edge of the 

 cluster of swamp grass a regular path 

 is formed. The male alights outside 

 of the grassy patch and hops to the 

 nest, thereby forming a path, and in 

 this way it becomes easy to the ex- 

 perienced eye to find the nest. 



The bittern lays from three to six 

 eggs. After several weeks the young 

 will emerge from the eggs. It was 

 quite a treat for me when at one time 

 I found two downy young in front of 

 their mother, who was protecting the 

 three remaining eggs from which the 

 young had not emerged. After sev- 

 eral weeks the young are quite large, 

 as the picture shows. This picture is 

 due to Ed and Frank Zesch. The fe- 

 male is very persistent when sitting 

 on the eggs, and in several cases, as 

 with the woodcock, had to be taken 

 bodily from the nest and eggs, and 

 even will not budge when a dog is 

 standing over them. 



It is quite difficult for the parents 

 to supply food to their young. In one 

 instance which I have never seen re- 

 corded, the adult male flew with a 

 frog to a nearby shrub and pierced 

 the frog on a short dead limb, for fu- 

 ture use. To my knowledge, when the 



