302 
GREEN HERON. 
This mode of life, requiring little fatigue where game is so plenty, as 
is generally the case in all our marshes, must be particularly pleasing 
to the bird ; and also very interesting, from the continual exercise of 
cunning and ingenuity necessary to circumvent its prey. Some of the 
naturalists of Europe, however, in their superior wisdom, think very 
differently ; and one can scarcely refrain from smiling at the absurdity 
of those writers, who declare, that the lives of this whole class of birds 
are rendered miserable by toil and hunger ; their very appearance, 
according to Buffon, presenting the image of suffering anxiety and 
indigence.* 
When alarmed, the Green Bittern rises with a hollow guttural scream ; 
does not fly far, but usually alights on some old stump, tree or fence 
adjoining, and looks about with extended neck ; though sometimes this 
is drawn in so that his head seems to rest on his breast. As he walks 
along the fence, or stands gazing at you with outstretched neck, he has 
the frequent habit of jetting the tail. He sometimes flies high, with 
doubled neck, and legs extended behind, flapping the wings smartly, 
and travelling with great expedition. He is the least shy of all our 
Herons; and perhaps the most numerous and generally dispersed: 
being found far in the interior, as well as along pur salt marshes ; and 
everywhere about the muddy shores of our mill-ponds, creeks and large 
rivers. 
The Green Bittern begins to build about the twentieth of April ; 
sometimes in single pairs in swampy woods ; often in companies ; and 
not unfrequently in a kind of association with the Qua-birch, or Night 
Herons. The nest is fixed among the branches of the trees ; is con- 
structed wholly of small sticks, lined with finer twigs, and is of con- 
siderable size, though loosely put together. The female lays four eggs, 
of the common oblong form,, and of a pale light blue color. The young 
do not leave the nest until able to fly ; and for the first season, at least, 
are destitute of the long pointed plumage on the back ; the lower parts 
are also lighter, and the white on the throat broader. During the whole 
summer, and until late in autumn, these birds are seen in our meadows 
and marshes, but never remain during winter in any part of the United 
States. 
The Green Bittern is eighteen inches long, and twenty-five inches in 
extent ; bill black, lighter below, and yellow at the base ; chin and nar- 
row streak down the throat yellowish white ; neck dark vinaceous red ; 
back covered with very long tapering pointed feathers, of a hoary green, 
shafted with white, on a dark green ground ; the hind part of the neck 
is destitute of plumage, that it may be the more conveniently drawn in 
over the breast, but is covered with the long feathers of the throat, and 
* Hist. Nat. des Oiseaux, tome xxii., p. 343. 
