S5 



AMERICAN BITTERN. 

 ARDEA MLYOE. 

 [Plate LXV.— Fig. 3.] 



fje Butor de la Baye d'Hudson, Briss. V, p. M9. 25.— Buir. VII, p. 430.^Edw. 136. mr. Jl — ^Lath. 



Syn. HI, p. 58 ^Peaie's Museum, JVo. 3727. 



THIS is another nocturnal species, common to all our sea 

 and river marshes, tho no-where numerous ; it rests all day among 

 the reeds and rushes, and unless disturbed, flies and feeds only 

 during the night. In some places it is called the Indian Hen, on 

 the sea coast of New Jersey it is known by the name of Dunkadooy 

 a word probably imitative of its common note. They are also 

 found in the interior, having myself killed one at the inlet of the 

 Seneca Lake, in October. It utters at times a hollow guttural 

 note among the reeds; but has nothing of that loud booming 

 sound for which the European Bittern is so remarkable. This 

 circumstance, with its great inferiority of size, and difference of 

 marking, sufficiently prove them to be two distinct species, altho 

 hitherto the present has been classed as a mere variety of the 

 European Bittern. These birds, we are informed, visit Severn 

 river, at Hudson's Bay, about the beginning of June ; make their 

 nests in swamps, laying four cinereous green eggs among the long 

 grass. The young are said to be at first black. 



These birds, when disturbed, rise with a hollow kiva^ and are 

 then easily shot down, as they fly heavily. Like other night birds 

 their sight is most acute during the evening twilight ; but their 

 hearing is at all times exquisite. 



The American Bittern is twenty-seven inches long, and three 

 feet four inches in extent ; from the point of the bill to the extrC" 



9 



