168 
AEDEIDiE. 
common species under the name of jack-%m^Q. It is not an un- 
frequent error, even at the present day, to imagine that jack-snipe 
means male snipe ; in the same way that jack denotes the male 
sex of the ass, and other animals. 
To quote the words of Goldsmith, These bellowing explosions 
are chiefly heard from the beginning of spring to the end of 
autumn ; and, however awful they may seem to us, are the calls to 
courtship or of connubial felicity This writer judiciously combats 
the various ideas respecting the manner in which the sound is 
produced, and states that, unaided by any extraneous means, the 
bird^s windpipe is fitted to produce the sound for which it is 
remarkable.^'’ 
Although we associate the bittern with the rank and humid 
marsh, or with desolation,'*^ yet is there a finely poetical associ- 
ation with its name, — Arclea stellaris, or heron of the stars. This 
doubtless originated from its singular spiral flight, by means of 
winch it ascends into the realms of space, far beyond the reach of 
human vision. 
THE AMEEICAN BITTERN, 
Botaums lentiginosiis, Mont, (sp.) 
Afdea lentiginosa ,, 
■ mohoho, Wagler. 
Has once been obtained. 
The specimen was thus noticed by me in the 17 th volume of the 
Annals of Natural History, published in 1846. ^‘1 have the plea- 
sure of placing on record the occurrence of an American bittern 
in Ireland, the first known to have visited this island. The fresh 
skin, being sent to Belfast to be preserved and mounted, came 
under my inspection on the I4th of November 1845 ; and having 
learned that it was sent from Armagh by the distinguished astro- 
nomer I)r. T. R. Robinson — whose acutely observant eye had not 
failed to mark the differences between it and the Botaums stellaris 
— I wrote to liim for all particulars respecting the bird, and 
