
174 BITTERNS. 
green eggs.” Peabody, “eggs of a green color.” Thomp- 
son, “six eggs, of a dark, b ae. clay color.” Find- 
ing the venerated authorities determined that the eggs should 
have green on them of some shade or other, I made a fresh 
examination, thinking I might have been mistaken. I studied | 
them long and carefully in every light, and gave them full 
consideration, but it was all in vain. I did once think I had 
detected a glaneing greenish reflection, but found the color 
came from a window blind. I have stated that the eggs of ; 
the American and the European species are just alike. Let | 
us see what European authors say: Selby says, pale green; 
Bewick, greenish white ; Fleming, olive green; a writer for 
the Lenton Tract Society, pale Sich ads: ; Mudie, green- ` 
ish brown; Albin, whitish, inclining to ashy or green; La- 
. tham, pale ash-green; Goodrich, pale green; M. Holandre, 
blanc-verdátre; Nauman and Buhle give a figure much too 
dark. It is hard to be obliged to say of so many well known : 
men that their statements are unreliable; but seeing is be- — 
lieving, and the truth is the truth, and the color is as I have : 
said. Mr. Samuels gives the true state of the case with 
ud to our bird, and Yarrell in regard to the European. 
species, and Hewitson and Atkinson, the former of whom ` 
borrowed the specimen he figures from Mr. ‘Yarrell, both 
give accurately colored plates. When writers will say such 
things of the European kind, we need not be surprised, | 
however incredulous, when Latham tells us that a Cayenin E 
species lays “round whitish eggs, spotted with green." Be- 
sides all these errors, the author of the article “Bittern,” in 
the “New American Cyclopedia,” says that the bird “builds 
in trees, like the herons, ordinarily rearing two young,” 4 5 
statement about as incorrect as it could be. Mudie speaks. 3 
as follows of the European bittern’s voice: “Anon a burst 
of savage laughter breaks upon you, gratingly loud, and so 
unwonted and odd that it sounds as if the voices of a bull 
and a horse were combined; the former breaking down his 
bellow to suit the neigh of the latter in mocking you from 



