the common bittern. 
93 
almost uniform, but the plumes on the sides of the neck 
narrowly barred with black, and widened into a frill which 
covers the hind-neck, the latter being clothed with dense 
down of a tawny-buff colour ; the feathers lielow the eye, and 
a streak along the cheeks, and down the sides of the neck, 
black • a malar line of feathers and the throat creamy-white, 
with a centra! line of reddish-buff feathers, slightly mottled 
with black bases ; the lower throat also creamy-wlule with 
four or five tolerably defined broad lines of tawny-buff and 
black mottled feathers ; the lower part of the ruff on the fore- 
neck with narrow wavy lines of black ; the breast covered wit i 
tawny-buff down, concealed by a large patch of loose plumes 
on each side of the chest, these being mostly black with tawny- 
buff margins : remainder of under surface creamy-white, 
streaked with black centres to the feathers, the black mark- 
ings slightly broken up with tawny-buff mottlings, tire thighs 
and under tail-coverts scarcely marked at all ; under 
coverts and axillaries tawny-buff, the former narrowly lined 
with blackish, the axillaries more distinctly barred with dusky- 
blackish : bill greenish-yellow ; bare loral space ^ yellowish- 
green- feet yellowish-green, the claws dark brown; ins yellow. 
Total length, 24 inches; culmen, 2-75; wing, 13-0; tail, 44; 
tarsus, 3-8. 
Adult Female.— Similar to the male. 
Young.— Does not differ from the ad-alts, except that the 
primary-coverts and quills are nearly uniform, with only a 
certain amount of rufous mottlings on the inner ivebs. 
Nestling. — Covered with down of a yellowish-buff colour. 
Range in Great Britain. — The Bittern used to be one of our 
native birds, but the gradual draining of the meres and 
swamps has resulted in the extinction of the species as a 
breedin'^-bird in Great Britain. Even now, however, a little 
protection afforded to the Bitterns which visit us in spring 
would doubtless re-establish the species in England, and then, 
as Mr. Howard Saunders remarks, “ the ‘boom ’ of the Bittern 
might a^ain be heard in our land.” It occurs at intervals in 
winter and spring in different parts of the three kingdoms, 
and within recent years I have seen specimens shot in the 
Thames Valley. 
