96 
AMERICAN BITTERN. 
of you, and fly off very slowly in a direct course. Their cries at such times 
greatly resemble those of the Night and Yellow-crowned Herons. 
My friends Dr. Bachman and Mr. Nuttall, have both heard the love- 
notes of this bird. The former says, in a letter to me, “ their hoarse croak* 
ings, as if their throats were filled with water, were heard on every side 
and the latter states that “ instead of the bump or bomp of the true Bittern, 
their call is something like the uncouth syllables of ’pump-au-g&h, but 
uttered in the same low, bellowing tone.''’ 
Dr. Bachman procured, on the 29th of April, 1838, about forty miles 
from Charleston, individuals in the ovaries of which he found eggs so large 
as to induce him to believe that they would have been laid in the course of 
a single week. Some others which were procured by him and myself within 
nine miles of Charleston, on the 29th of March, had the eggs extremely 
small. 
While at Passamaquoddy Bay, at the eastern extremity of the United 
States, I was assured that this species bred in the vicinity ; but I saw none 
there, or in any of the numerous places examined on my way to Labrador 
and Newfoundland. In neither of these countries did I meet with a single 
person who was acquainted with it. 
In few other species of maritime or marsh birds have I seen so much 
difference of size and weight, even in the same sex. Of about twenty speci- 
mens in my possession, scarcely two correspond in the length of the bills, 
legs, or wings. The plate before you was engraved from a drawing made 
by my son John Woodhousb. 
American Bittern, Ardea Minor , Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. vii. p. 35. 
Ardea Minor, Bonap. Syn., p. 307. 
American Bittern, Ardea lentiyinesa, Swains, and Rich. F. Bor. Amer., vol. ii. p. 374. 
American Bittern, hiutt. Man., vol. ii. p. 60. 
American Bittern, Ardea minor, And. Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 290. 
Male, 27, 45. Female, 264, 424. 
Winter resident in the Floridas. Migrates over most part of the United 
States. Not seen in Kentucky. Abundant in Texas. Migratory. 
Adult Male. 
Bill longer than the head, moderately straight, stout, compressed, tapering 
to the point. Upper mandible with its dorsal line straight, towards the end 
slightly convex and declinate, the ridge broad and rather rounded at the base, 
gradually narrowed to the middle, then a little enlarged, and again narrowed 
to the point, the sides bulging, towards the margin erect, the edges sharp, 
towards the end obscurely serrated, the tip narrow, with a distinct notch or 
sinus on each side. Nasal groove oblong, with a long depressed line in front; 
