97 



GREEN HERON. 

 ARDEA riRESCEJVS. 

 [Plate LXL— Fig. 1.] 



yirct. Zool. tJ\*o. 349. — Catbsby, I, 80. — Le Crahier vert. Buff. VII, 404.— Lath. Sijn, v. 3, p, 68, 



JV*o. 30. — Pjeaie's Museum, JVo. 3797. 



THIS common and familiar species owes little to the liberality 

 of public opinion, whose prejudices have stigmatized it with a very 

 vulgar and indelicate nickname ; and treat it on all occasions as 

 worthless and contemptible. Yet few birds are more independent 

 of man than this; for it fares best, and is always most numerous, 

 where cultivation is least known or attended to; its favorite resi- 

 dence being the watery solitudes of swamps, pools and morasses, 

 where millions of frogs and lizards "tune their nocturnal notes" 

 in full chorus, undisturbed by the lords of creation. 



The Green Bittern makes its first appearance in Pennsylva- 

 nia early in April, soon after the marshes are completely thawed. 

 There, among the stagnant ditches with which they are inter- 

 sected, and amidst the bogs and quagmires, he hunts with great 

 cunning and dexterity. Frogs and small fish are his principal 

 game, whose caution, and facility of escape, require nice address, 

 and rapidity of attack. When on the look-out for small fish, 

 he stands in the water, by the side of the ditch, silent and mo- 

 tionless as a statue; his neck drawn in over his breast, ready for 

 action. The instant a fry or minnow comes within the range of 

 his bill, by a stroke quick and sure as that of the rattle-snake, he 

 seizes his prey, and swallows it in an instant. He searches for 

 small crabs, and for the various worms and larvae, particularly 

 those of the dragon-fly, which lurk in the mud, with equal adroit- 



VOL. VII. B b 



