272 _ AMERICAN GAME. 
merable specks and streaks of brownish yellow; quills, 
black, with a leaden gloss, and tipped with yellowish 
brown; legs and feet, yellow, tinged with pale greea ; 
middle claw, pectinated ; belly, light yellowish brown, 
streaked with darker; vent, plain; thighs, sprinkled on 
the outside with grains of dark brown ; male and female 
nearly alike, the latter somewhat less. According to 
Bewick, the tail of the European Bittern contains only ten 
feathers ; the American species has, invariably, twelve. 
The intestines measured five feet six inches in length, 
and were very little thicker than a common knitting- 
needle ; the stomach is usually filled with fish or frogs.* 
“This bird, when fat, is considered by many to be 
excellent eating.” 
It is on the strength of Mr. Wilson’s statement as 
above that I have given among the vulgar appellations 
of this beautiful bird that of Dunkadoo ; though I must 
admit that I never heard him called a Dunkadoo, either 
on the sea-coast of New Jersey or any where else; and 
further must put it on record, that if the sea-coasters of 
New Jersey did coin the said melodious word. as émita- 
tive of tts common note, they proved much worse imita- 
tors than I have found them in whistling bay snipe, 
hawnking Canada geese, or yelping Brant. They might 
just as well have called him a Cockatoo, while they were 
about it. 
* [ have taken an entire water-rail from the stomach of the European 
Bittern.—Ep. 
