228 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



them, and seemed astonished that a newly-hatched squab could not swallow 

 a whole mealworm at a mouthful. For he was in such a hurry that he did 

 not half break up the food before offering it, but had to come outside aud 

 knock it about two or three times before it was tender enough to be 

 swallowed. The hen Blue-bird, after breaking up a mealworm, swallows 

 and disgorges it before presenting it to her young. — A. G. Butlee 

 (124, Beckenham Road, Kent). 



Hoopoe in Sussex.— Mrs. Seward Dunlop reports to me that a fine 

 Hoopoe was on her lawn, Red Oaks, Henfield, Sussex, on Easter Day, 

 and then disappeared ominously. These Sussex birds are ecclesiastical. 

 In 1869 a Hoopoe was at Bosham Vicarage on Good Friday. — H. D. 

 Gordon (The Vicarage, Harting, Sussex). 



Notes on the American Bittern. — Late last September a female 

 Botaurus lentiginosus was discovered by some boys upon the margin of a 

 small pond at a short distance behind my residence. It was a most 

 unusual locality for the species to occur, aud its coming there appeared to 

 have been due to the fact that the bird was exhausted by long flight. After 

 flying a few yards it was easily captured, and was brought to me alive, 

 without having received any bodily harm whatever. Next morning it had 

 recovered no little of its strength, and it was remarkable to observe how 

 noiselessly and with what ease it could fly about a furnished room without 

 overturning any small object of furniture. It gracefully flew up from the 

 floor and perched upon the curtain-rod of a high window, where it sat for 

 an hour or more in a characteristic position, as motionless as a statue. If 

 approached when upon the ground, it eyed you keenly, assumed a squatting 

 posture, widely spread out the feathers at either side of the neck, while it 

 slightly raised those of the rest of the body and its wings ; and finally, when 

 it considered you within the proper distance, drew all its plumage close to 

 its body and delivered, as quickly as a flash, a darting blow with its beak. 

 This thrust, I am sure, is generally given with sufficient violence to pierce 

 one through an eye, even were the lid instinctively drawn down to protect 

 that organ. By such a blow it can easily stab a large frog through and 

 through its head, impaling the creature upon the end of its beak — a feat I 

 have seen the bird perform. A loud blowing noise accompanies this attack of 

 the Bittern, which varies in its intensity — depending apparently much upon 

 the degree of anger to which the bird has been excited by its tormentors. 

 My captive behaved much in the same way when held up by the legs in 

 front of another person, and one had to exercise great care to avoid its quick 

 and well-delivered thrusts. At the end of three or four days, it having eaten 

 nothing up to that time, nor drunk any water, I offered it a live medium- 

 sized frog to try its appetite. It promptly laid out that poor batrachian by 

 a few telling stabs given with its beak, sending one home every time the 



