PEALE’S EGRET HERON 
in marshy and sedgy places. Their food is principally reptiles, 
insects, worms, fish-spawn, and they even eat vegetables, and 
are not by any means so destructive as the Herons proper, nor so 
skilful at fishing. The birds of this subgenus never sit in open 
places, but on the contrary keep concealed amongst the highest 
reeds or grasses, and if an enemy approaches their retreat, they 
either squat on the ground, or escape between the reeds, and 
never resort to their slow, heavily raised flight, but in the last 
extremity. Instead of high trees, the Bitterns place their nest in 
a sedgy margin, or among the rushes; and instead of sticks and 
wool, they are contented with simpler materials, such as sedge, 
leaves of water-plants or rushes; and they lay seven or eight eggs, 
twice the number of the true Herons. The young do not require 
for so long a period the parental care, but on the contrary follow 
the mother after a few days. When excited, the Bitterns have a 
curious mode of erecting their loose neck-feathers, causing it to 
appear very much enlarged. Although well defined as a group, 
these birds are connected with the true Herons by means of inter¬ 
mediate species that might with propriety be placed in either: as 
an example of the intermediate species more allied to the Herons, 
we might quote the beautiful B. ralloides of southern Europe, 
which we look upon as the type of the group Buphus. Of those 
nearer to Botaurus, B. virescens is an example, with the form of 
the Herons, but the plumage of the Bitterns : we establish it as 
the type of a natural though secondary group, to which we cannot 
do better than apply the name of Herodias, proposed by Boie. 
In the subgenus Botaurus also, nature has pointed out several 
small sections, of which nomenclators have eagerly availed 
themselves : as among the Herons we have noticed the Egrets, 
Herons proper, Herodias , and Buphus, we may also indicate the 
JVycticoraces among the Bitterns, which are distinguished by 
wearing in the adult state long, tapering occipital feathers; 
