83 
allen’s Naturalist’s library. 
that district in large colonies among the high reeds and bushes 
cmdJ'vervSe? the herds of half-wild 
cattle, very often perched on the backs of the beasts, searching 
for ticks, which seem to constitute, if not the principal at 
east a very favourite diet of the bird.” The food of the Buff- 
than of feh, 
nd beetle.s, grasshoppers, and locusts are its favourite food 
though It also devours frogs. ’ 
as the reed-forests, or, 
as Ml. J. H. Gurney found them in the Fayoom district in 
Lgypt, in a large bed of dead tamarisks, from two to five 
feet above the water.” The species is a late’breeder and evin 
'nf IhM o'"' "ti no young in the nests, while some 
of the latter where still being built. 
Eggs._From three to five in number, of a very pale green.'dv 
white. A.V1S, i 75 -r 85 inch; diam., 1 - 4 . fereem.n 
THE LITTLE BITTERNS. GENUS ARDETTA. 
Gray, List Gen. B. 1842, App. p. 13. 
Type, yl. niinuta (Linn ). 
In the Bitterns, with which we commence the second 
sec ion of the Herons, the tail-feathers are only ten in nunib^ 
and he bill is always serrated. In the Little Bitterns the 
iniddle toe and claw are short, and only about the same 
ength as the tarsus. In the True Bitterns {Botanrus) the 
d^w^hrie^gth^" ‘oe and 
1 he Little Bitterns, too, have the sexes quite different in 
colour. Ihey are distributed nearly over the entire globe. 
1. THE LITTLE BITTERN. ARDETTA MINUTA. 
Ardea minuta, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 240 (1766) 
“■ "■ ®"'- 
Ardeita minuta, Dresser, B. Eur. vi. p. 259 (1880) • B O U 
L.st Br. B p (.SS3); S.aupdcr?, ed vir, Br.' B. 
IV. p. 200 (1884); id. Man. Br. B. p. ,6q (i88qL I fl 
grd. Col. Fig. Br. B. part xix. (x 89 'i)f sUfe ^^ajR 
lint. Mus. XXVI. p. 222. ^ 
