PEALE’S EGRET HERON. 493 
tables, and are not by any means so destructive as the herons 
proper, nor so skilful at fishing. The birds of this subgenus 
never sit in open places, but, on the contrary, keep concealed 
amongst the highest reeds or grasses; and if an enemy ap- 
proaches their retreat, they either squat on the ground, or 
escape between the reeds, and never resort to their slow heavily 
raised flight but in the last extremity. Instead of hich trees, 
the bitterns place their nest in a sedgy margin or among the 
rushes; and instead of sticks and wool, they are contented 
with simpler materials, such as sedge, leaves of water-plants, 
or rushes ; and they lay seven or eight eggs, twice the number 
of the true herons. The young do not require for so long a 
period the parental care, but, on the contrary, follow the mother 
after a few days. When excited, the bitterns have a curious 
mode of erecting their loose neck-feathers, causing it to appear 
very much enlarged. Although well defined as a group, these 
birds are connected with the true herons by means of in- 
termediate species that might with propriety be placed in 
either. Asan example of the intermediate species more allied 
to the herons, we might quote the beautiful A. ralloides of 
Southern Europe, which we look upon as the type of the group 
Buphus. Of those nearer to Botaurus, A. virescens is an 
example, with the form of the herons but the plumage of 
the bitterns: we establish it as the type of a natural though 
secondary group, to which we cannot do better than apply 
the name of Herodias, proposed by Boie. In the subgenus 
Botaurus, also, Nature has pointed out several small sections, 
of which nomenclators have eagerly availed themselves. As 
among the herons we have noticed the egrets, herons proper, 
Herodias, and Buphus, we may also indicate the Nycticoraces 
among the bitterns, which are distinguished by wearing in the 
adult state long tapering occipital feathers; and the A. stellaris 
of Europe, together with its close analogue, A. minor of Wilson, 
may be regarded as the types of asimilar small group. Another 
croup hardly distinct had been called Crabier by the French, 
but without any fixed character: we have divided these Crabiers 
