GENUS 69. ARDEA. HERON. 
SPECIES 1. A. MINOR. 
AMERICAN BITTERN. 
[Plate LXV.— Fig. 3.] 
Le Butor de la Baye Hudson, Briss. v, p. 449. 25. — Buff, vii, 
p. 430. — Edw. 136. var. Jl . — Lath. Syn. iii, p. 58.— -Peale’s 
Museum, No. 3727. 
This is a nocturnal species, common to all our sea and 
river marshes, though 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 In- 
dian Hen, on the sea coast of New Jersey it is known by the 
name of Dunkadoo, 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, although 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, lay- 
ing 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 kwa, 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. 
