THE BITTERN. 979 
Singly or in pairs it is distributed over the marshes, but 
with us it is not abundant.” 
The geographical range of this bird is, as I have 
before stated, very extensive, extending from the shores 
of Hudson’s Bay, in the extreme north, so far south at 
least as to the Cape of Florida, and probably yet farther 
down the coasts of the Mexican gulfs. 
That fanciful blockhead, the Count de Buffon—for he 
was a most almighty blockhead when he set himself 
drawing on his imagination for facts—with his usual 
eloquent absurdity, describes the species as “ exhibiting 
the picture of wretchedness, anxiety and indigence ; 
condemned to struggle perpetually with misery and 
want; sickened with the restless cravings of a famished 
appetite ;” a description so ridiculously untrue, that were 
it possible for these birds to comprehend it, it would 
excite the risibility of the whole tribe. 
If the count had seen the Quawks, as I did, at their 
high jinks, by the Hackensack, he would have scarce 
written such folly; and had he been a little more of a 
true philosopher, and thorough naturalist, he would have 
comprehended that whatsoever being the Universal 
Creator hath created unto any end—to that end he 
adapted him, not in his physical structure only, but in 
his instincts, his appetites, his tastes, his pleasures and 
his pains; and that to the patient Bittern, motionless on 
his mud-bank, that watch is as charming, as is the swift 
pursuit of the small bird to the falcon, of the rabbit to 
