LEAST BITTERN. 505 
Ardea minor, WILSON, Am. Orn., viii, 1814, 35. 
Botaurus minor, Borg, Isis, 1826, 979. 
Botaurus lentiginosus, STX#PHENS, Shaw’s Gen. Zool, xi, 1819, 596. 
Ardea stelluris, var. minor, GMELIN, Syst., Nat., i, 1788, 635. 
Plumage of upper-parts aingularly freckled with brown of various shades, blackish, 
tawny and whitish; neck and under parts ochrey or tawny-white. Each feather 
marked with a brown dark-edged stripe, the throst line white, with brown streaks; 
a@ velvety-black patch on each side of the neck above; crown dull-brown, with buff 
superciliary stripe; tail brown; quills greenish-black, with a glaucous shade, brown 
tipped ; bil! black and yellowish, legs greenish, soles yellow ; length, 23-28; wing, 10-13; 
tail, 43; bill, about 3; tarsus, about 34 
Habitat, entire temperate North America (up to 56° or 60°). Cuba. South to 
Guatemala. Breeds chiefly from the middle districts northward, wintering thence south- 
ward. Regularly migratory. Accidental in Europe. 
Summer resident from March to November, but usually seen in this 
vicinity during the spring and fall migrations. Like the Blue Heron it 
is an early and late migrant, often seen after severe frosts in the fall. 
It is apparently more numerous than any others of the family except the 
Green Heron. But, unlike any of the preceding, it is usually seen in 
weedy and bushy swamps and not along running streams, prefering, if it 
must have company, that of the Snipe and Rail, to that of its immediate 
rolatives. 
A friend describes to me a bird which he eaw stalking along the bank 
of a creek in spring, asof a freckled mulatto color, about two feet long, 
slender and graceful in its moverments, which he calls “Nelly Bly,” for 
‘When she walks she lifts her foot 
And then she puts it down.” 
A description which better applies to this species than to any other of 
this family. | 
The nest of the Bittern is placed on the ground; the eggs, three to 
five in number, are brownish-drab, measuring about 2.00 by 1 50. 
Genus AKDETTA. Gray. 
Generic characters as in Bo'aurus, but sexes differently colored. 
ARDETTA EXILIS (Gm.) Gr. 
I.east Ftittern. 
Ardea exilis, KIRTLAND, Ohio Geolog. Surv., 1°38, 165.—AUDUBON, B. Am., vi, 1843, 100. 
Ardetta erilig, WaEaton, Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1360, 1861, °63; Reprint, 10; Field Notes, 
i, 1861, 129; Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1874, 1875, 573; Reprint, 13. 
—TREMBLY, Field Notes, i, 1861, 150 —LANGDON, Cat. Birds of Cin., 1877, 15; Journ. 
Cin. Soc, Nat. Hist., i, 1878, 117; Revised List, ib., iii, 1879, 1841; Reprint, 18; Sam- 
mer Birds, ib., iii, 1880, 227; Field Notes, ib., ii, 1880, 127—-Dury and FREEMAN, 
ib., ii, 1880, 184; Reprint, 5. 
