THE BITTERN. AMERICAN BITTERN. 
Ardea Minor sive Lentiginos. 
THE INDIAN HEN. THE QUAWK. 
THE DUNKADOO. 
Tus, though a very common and extremely beautiful 
bird, with an exceedingly extensive geographic range, 
is the object of a very general and perfectly inexplicable 
prejudice and dislike, common, it would seem, to all 
classes. The gunner never spares it, although it is per- 
fectly inoffensive; and-although the absurd prejudice, 
to which I have alluded, causes him to cast it aside, 
when killed, as uneatable carrion, its flesh is in 
reality very delicate and juicy, and still held in high 
repute in Europe; while here one is regarded very much 
in the light of a cannibal, as I have myself experienced,’ 
for venturing to eat it. The farmer and the boatman 
stigmatize it by a filthy and indecent name. The cook 
turns up her nose at it, and throws it to the cat; for the 
dog, wiser than his master, declines it—not as unfit to 
eat, but as game, and therefore meat for his masters. 
