Unusual Nesting Site of the Least Bittern, at 

 Camden, N. J. 



BY JULIAN K. POTTER. 



It is a strange fact that one interested in the study of birds 

 may travel the same beaten paths about his home time after 

 time, and yet fail to discover all the bird secrets in his particular 

 neighborhood. This is the lure that calls one afield at every 

 opportunity, though the path may be as familiar as the city 

 street which is followed to business every day. 



I had often traversed the soggy path around the old mud 

 hole, completely choked up with button-bushes, arrow-head 

 lilies, and other water-loving plants, before discovering that it 

 was the summer retreat of that charming little denizen of our 

 marshes, the Least Bittern. Often in early spring I had sur- 

 prised the bird, hunting along the edges of the pool ; and had 

 watched it as with frightened squawk it flapped its way to a 

 more secure retreat farther from the shore, As for finding a 

 nest in such a place, I had never given it a thought, for the 

 reason that I always believed that a rank growth of cat- tails 

 was necessary for the home site of this species. Cat-tails were 

 entirely lacking in this mud-hole, so of course no Bitterns 

 nested there ; — insufficient knowledge, gleaned from numerous 

 books. 



My surprise may well be imagined, when on May 10, 1916, 

 in a tour of investigation about the pond, I noticed a male 

 Least Bittern, bill pointing up, sitting on a nest situated in a 

 button-bush eighteen inches above the water. By means of an 

 old boat that had been conveniently left in the pond, I found 

 that the nest contained five eggs. The following day near the 

 opposite side of the pond from the first nest, a female Least Bit- 

 tern was seen carrying a stick in her bill. She made her way 

 to a bunch of arrow-head lilies, and placed the stick among the 



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