318 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



LITTLE BITTERN. 



Ardetta minuta. 



The Little Bittern, though it has occurred at various times, 

 must be considered a rare bird. It is of skulking habits, 

 and is with difficulty aroused from the thick beds of reeds 

 and sedge in which it conceals itself during the day. It 

 feeds on fish, frogs, and small freshwater mollusks. By 

 some, the note of the male is described as resembling the 

 sound uttered by a paviour when he delivers a blow with his 

 rammer : by others, to the syllable " pumm " several times 

 repeated. The female has a cry very like "get, get." The 

 nest is described in Yarrell (B. B. vol. iv. p. 304) as a solid 

 structure of flags, leaves, and bits of grassj^ attached to 

 upright growing reeds, very little above the water; and 

 sometimes, according to Gloger, a deserted Magpie^s nest, 

 in some low bush near a swamp, is utilized. Mr. Knox 

 (O. R. p. 327) states that an adult male was presented to 

 him by Mr. Austen, the Rector of Pulborough, which had 

 been shot as it rose from a weedy pond in his garden, in 

 May 1843; he mentions another male shot at Oving, in 

 the summer of 1853, which passed into the possession of ■ 

 Dr. Tyacke, of Chichester ; and that a third specimen was 

 killed in a water meadow, on the western border of Sussex. 

 Mr. Jeffery (p. n.) says that he shot an immature male or a 

 young female at Southbrook, between Ratham and Ashling, 

 in August 1863, and mentions another, adult, killed at 

 Runcton in April 1869, and a third, female or immature, at 

 Nutbourne on October 1st, 1873. 



Mr. Thomas Parkin, of Halton, near Hastings (p. n.), 

 states that on October 31st, 1889, a Little Bittern was 

 taken on the Parade at Eastbourne. 



