When I gave an account of the matter at a meeting of 
the Nuttall Club this evening, one of the members (MrFreeman) 
suggested that the Bittern may increase the effectiveness of 
the display of these feathers by inflating the skin to which 
they are attached and thus causing them to stand out much 
further than they otherwise would. Even if this be so, 
I doubt if feathers no longer or more numerous than those 
possessed by my specimens could be expanded into the broad, 
full, snowy ruffs shown by the Bitterns seen yesterday and 
to-day at Concord. 
It is conceivable, of course, that the ruffs dis¬ 
played by the living birds were much less large and white 
than they appeared. I should certainly suspect that this 
may have been the case were it not that the observations I 
have just noted were made with such care by five different 
persons and under widely varying conditions of light and 
shade. Hence I have felt justified in recording our 
mutual impressions of what we saw, despite the fact that 
my skins of Bitterns do not seem to confirm it altogether. 
One thing, however, is quite sure, vizi that the plumes — 
be they long or short, white or yellow — are used for dis¬ 
play in the interesting way I have described^ 
