61 
3irds of Toronto, Ontario. 
By James K.Fleming. 
Pt.I, Water Birds. 
Aun, XXIII, Oet., 1906, p.446. 
rsotaurus lentiginosus. American -Bittern.— Summer resi 
dent, April 11 to Nov. 4; abundant in spring and fall; breeds (May 31,1906). 
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5. Botaurus lentiginosus. American Bittern. — Common about 
the marsh land of all the lakes. 
Bittern ( Botaurus lentiginosus ) in a Phenomenal Position at Bos¬ 
ton, Mass. — Upon entering the Public Garden about seven A. M. on 
March 25, 1917, while my eyes were turned in a somewhat different direc¬ 
tion, I was conscious of a large bird rising from a grass plot at my right. 
This bird by a flight of about two hundred feet alighted in a large cotton¬ 
wood tree which stands beside the pond within the Garden, taking a perch 
forty feet or thereabouts above the ground. There it remained for full 
observation, assuming the statuesque attitude peculiar to the Bittern, 
neck, head, and bill in a straight line pointing up into the sky, and remaining 
motionless. Relying on its sense of self-concealment in such an attitude 
when in a marsh or swamp, this bird in the tree placed its reliance, as is 
its wont, on maintaining this attitude, and did so throughout the day. 
I remained in the Garden until 8.30, and when I came away the bird 
had changed neither position nor attitude from those assumed when it 
took its perch. Other observers’ attention was called to this phenomenon, 
as I met them. And during both forenoon and afternoon friends, to 
whom I mentioned the occurrence at the breakfast table and who later 
visited the Garden, found the bird in the same position and attitude at 
different hours of the day. It was not concerned or disturbed upon ob¬ 
servers’ near approach to the tree or even standing directly under it, and 
as the tree is beside one of the principal paths of the Garden, there were 
passersby throughout the day. The Bittern took advantage of night, 
doubtlessly, to seek a more congenial location, for it was not present the 
following morning. 
The date of this occurrence was by six days earlier than the earliest 
record of Bittern in Howe and Allen’s ‘ Birds of Massachusetts,’ which is 
March 31, 1894, when Dr. Walter Faxon observed one in the Cambridge 
Region (Brewster). The conditions were still wintry, although the break¬ 
ing up had extended well toward the first springlike stage which really 
appeared two days later, when the ice was mostly gone from the pond and 
the earth had loosened from the grip of frost. As to the perch in the tree 
taken and maintained with full assurance of self-concealment, life-long 
ornithologists here, such as Mr. William Brewster and Dr. Charles W. 
Townsend, state that they have never seen a Bittern perching in a tree or 
bush. Dr. Townsend, however, writes me, “ One day last summer at 
Ipswich in a rain storm I saw a Bittern standing on top of a small haystack 
near my house. He presented a curious and unusual appearance, and I 
made a note of it.” And Mr. Chapman in his ‘ Handbook of Birds of 
Eastern North America,’ p. 220, in comparing herons and bitterns states, 
“ Herons perch and usually nest in trees; Bitterns rarely or never do.” 
It is presumable, therefore, that the occurrence of Bittern perching in a tree 
may have been previously noted by observers, but, perhaps, such an occur¬ 
rence as this bird in the Public Garden perching throughout the day and 
remaining for hours undisturbed and unconcerned in its typical statuesque 
attitude is unprecedented.— Horace W. Wright, Boston, Mass. 
■ XXLx. IV/.' /<?/7, JO. Lj-j^ — ^jj. 
