
BITTERNS. 177 
or struggling nightmare with a doleful noise, portending 
certain death to Hodge, or Joan, or some one else; and this 
predietion was always fulfilled to the letter, for in the course 
of the next twelve months some one was sure to die in that 
county or the next. The flesh of the prophet, however, 
was very good, provided his skin was stripped off before 
cooking, that it might not impart a muddy odor and taste. 
Thus it will be seen that our bird was a strange compound 
of good and evil, besides having some magical properties 
which weighed on neither side; but the march of centuries, 
which has changed everything for good or ill has had its 
effect upon the bittern. He can no longer preserve our 
teeth, nor ean he cast a murrain upon our cattle, nor even 
foretell somebody's death; even his magical light is gone, 
and he is now a quiet obscure fellow, doing man neither 
good nor ill, and asking only to be let alone. As to the 
bitterns of less civilized countries, their manners and cus- 
toms have never been described at much length, but they 
appear not to differ much from the American and European 
species, except that the lineated bittern of Cayenne is said 
by Latham to be capable of domestication, and to be then an 
excellent mouser. 
The bitterns are all much mottled in plumage, and may 
be divided by this mottling into three groups, viz. : First, 
The Rayed Bitterns, in which the mottling takes the form of 
longitudinal streaks, especially on the breast, in which group 
are the Botaurus stellaris (i. e., the starry) of Europe and 
Africa; B. lentiginosus (i. e., the freckled) of North Amer- 
ica, and B. pæciloptila (variegated feather) of Australia ; this 
last is now thought to be identical with B. Australis. Sec- 
ond, the Spotted Bitterns, such as Tigrisoma tigrina (tiger- 
bodied, tiger-like) of Cayenne, and the Javan B. limnophi- 
lax (pool-guard, a name which reminds one of Hood's lines : 
“The moping heron, motionless and stiff, 
on a stone, as silently an o y: 
To 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. III. 
