1895] MARYLAND ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 273 
Family ARDEID#—Bitterns and Herons. 
Botaurus lentiginosus (190). American Bittern. 
Fairly common during spring and fall, a few spend the 
summer with us and possibly breed. It may also stay over 
winter during mild seasons. From March 25 (’93, Gray) they 
are numerously noted until May 5 (’93, Resler), and in fall 
from September 1 (’91, Tylor), when one was taken at Tuck- 
ahoe Creek until October 10 (’94), when one was caught alive 
by Mr. Jacob Kirkwood early in the morning in front of No. 
103 Elliott street in Baltimore City. This he kindly kept in a 
box until I examined it. It was an ordinary sized dark 
plumaged male. 
Mr. J. E. Tylor supplies me with the following ‘items: 
‘Between the 20th and’ 30th of August, 1891, I killed a male 
Bittern in the Adkin’s woods, one mile south of Easton, and 
mounted same. On the first day of September, 1891, Dr. E. 
R. Trippe, of Easton, in company with A. G. Pascault, of the 
same town, shot a male Bittern in Tuckahoe Creek, five miles 
below Hillsboro; this I also mounted. On July 14, 1894, on 
Hog Creek, Gunpowder River, I flushed one from the marsh, 
but did not secure it.” 
“Mr. William H. Buller, residing at Marietta, Lancaster 
County, Pa., in a letter dated July 29, 1889, addressed to me, 
writes as follows: ‘I am inclined to believe that the American 
Bittern breeds in the vicinity of Schock’s Mills, a few miles 
west of Marietta; while I have never found its nest, or seen its 
young, yet I have so frequently seen the bird in that vicinity 
during the summer, that I think it probable that it breeds 
there’” (Birds Pa., 55). 
Dr. Coues, speaking of the District of Columbia, says: 
“Resident and rather common” (A. C., 100), and “TI have pro- 
cured it in January at Washington” (Birds N. W. 529). 
“Rather common from August to April at Washington” 
(Richmond). 
