100 
THE LEAST BITTERN. 
Ardea esilis, Wils. 
PLATE OCOLXYI. — Male, Female, and Young. 
One morning while I was at the Cincinnati Museum, in the State of Ohio, 
a woman came in holding in her apron one of this delicate species alive, 
which she said had fallen down the chimney of her house under night, and 
which, when she awoke at daybreak, was the first object she saw, it having 
perched on one of the bed-posts. It was a young bird. I placed it on the 
table before me, and drew from it the figure on the left of my plate. It 
stood perfectly still for two hours, but on my touching it with a pencil, after 
my drawing was done, it flew off and alighted on the cornice of a window. 
Replacing it on the table, I took two books and laid them so as to leave 
before it a passage of an inch and a half, through which it walked with ease. 
Bringing the books nearer each other, so as to reduce the passage to one inch, 
I tried the Bittern again, and again it made its way between them without 
moving either. When dead, its body measured two inches and a quarter 
across, from which it is apparent that this species, as well as the Gallinules 
and Rails, is enabled to contract its breadth in an extraordinary degree. 
While I was at Philadelphia, in September, 1832, a gentleman presented 
me with a pair of adult birds of this species, alive and in perfect plumage. 
They had been caught in a meadow a few miles below the city, and I kept 
them alive several days, feeding them on small fish and thin stripes of pork. 
They were expert at seizing flies, and swallowed caterpillars, and other in- 
sects. My wife admired them much on account of their gentle deportment, 
for although on being tormented, they would spread their wings, ruffle their 
feathers, and draw back their head as if to strike, yet they suffered them- 
selves to be touched by any one without pecking at his hand. It was amus- 
ing to see them continually attempting to escape through the windows, 
climbing with ease from the floor to the top of the curtain by means of their 
feet and claws. This feat they would repeat whenever they were taken 
down. The experiment of the books was Vied with them, and succeeded 
as at Cincinnati. At the approach of night they became much more lively, 
walked about the room in a graceful manner, with much agility, and gene- 
rally kept close together. I had ample opportunities of studying their natu 
