HERONS AND BITTERNS 



(Family Ardeidce) 



American Bittern 



(Botaurus lentiginosus) 



Called also: MARSH HEN; INDIAN HEN; STAKE DRIVER; 

 POKE; FRECKLED HERON; BOG BULL; NIGHT HEN; 

 BOOMING BITTERN; LOOK-UP 



Length — Varies from 24 to ^4 inches. 



Male and Female — Subcrested ; upper parts freckled with shades 

 of brown, blackish, buff, and whitish ; top of head and back 

 of neck slate color, with a yellow-brown wash; a black 

 streak on sides of neck; chin and throat white, with a few 

 brown streaks; under parts pale buff, striped with brown; 

 head flat. Bill yellow, and rather stout, and sharply pointed ; 

 tail small and rounded; legs long and olive colored. 



Range — Temperate North America; nests usually north of Vir- 

 ginia, and winters from that state southward to the West 

 Indies. 



Season — Summer resident, or visitor from May to October; per- 

 manent in the south. 



The booming bittern, whose " barbaric yawp " echoes from 

 lonely marshes, grassy meadows, and swamps through the sum- 

 mer, enjoys greater popularity in name than in deed; for he is a 

 hermit, a shy, solitary wanderer, that even Thoreau, no less 

 secluded than he, knew by his voice chiefly. " Many have 

 heard the stake driver," says Hamilton Gibson, "but who shall 

 locate the stake ? " The same bird whose voice sounds like 

 a stake being driven into a bog, or, again, "like the working 

 of an old-fashioned wooden pump," or like the hoarse crowing 

 of a raven when it flies at night, has for its love song the most 

 dismal, hollow bellow, that comes booming from the marshes at 

 evening, a mile away, with a gruesome solemnity. One of these 



157 



