AMERICAN BITTERN. 
57 
AMERICAN BITTERN — ARDEA MINOR — Plate LXV. Fig. 3. 
Le Butor de la Baye de Hudson, Briss. v. p. 449, 25. — Buff. vii. p. 430. — 
Edw. 136. — Lath. Syn. iii. p. 58. — Beale's Museum, No. 3727. 
BOTAVR US Bonaparte. 
Ardea minor, Bonap. Synop. p. 307. — Ardea Mokoho. — Wagl. Syst. Av. No. 29. 
This is another nocturnal species, common to all our sea 
and river marshes, though nowhere 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 Indian hen ; on the sea-coast of New Jersey, it is known 
by the name of dunkadoo, a word probably imitative of its com- 
mon 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 no- 
thing 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, sufiiciently 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, 
laying 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 hwa^ and 
are then easily shot down, as they fly heavily. Like other 
night birds, their sight is most acute during the evening twi- 
light ; but their hearing is, at all times, exquisite. 
The American bittern is twenty-seven inches long, and 
three feet four inches in extent ; from the point of the bill to 
the extremity of the toes, it measures three feet ; the bill is 
