of food for the table: the flesh is said to resemble that of
the Leveret in colour and taste, with some of the flavour of
wild-fowl. Sir Thomas Browne says that young Bitterns
were considered a better dish than young Herons.
The beak is greenish-yellow, the upper mandible varied
with dark horn-colour towards the point; the lore green;
the irides yellow; the top of the head black, tinged with
bronze-green ; the occipital feathers varied with transverse
bars of black and pale buff; all the upper surface of the
body pale brownisli-buff, irregularly marked with black
and dark reddish-brown ; the primary quill-featliers mottled
with greyish-black and chestnut-colour; tail-feathers reddish
brown, varied with black; the cheeks buff; the sides
of the neck the same, but with narrow transverse lines of
dark brown ; chin pale buffy-white ; from the angles of the
mouth, and down the neck in front, are large longitudinal
streaks of dark brown and reddish-brown ; the feathers of
the breast blackish-brown in the centre with broad margins
of buff; under surface of the body buff, with narrow streaks
of dark brown; legs and feet grass-green ; claws pale horn-
colour, the middle claw pectinated.
The specimen from which the representation of the Bittern
here given was taken was killed some years ago in Denny
Bog, in the New Forest, and the bird was sent to the Author
by his friend, Major Gilbert, of Bartley, near Lyndhurst.
The whole length of an adult bird is from twenty-eight
to thirty inches. From the carpal joint to the end of the
wing, fourteen inches; the first three quill-feathers nearly
equal in length, and the longest in the wing. Neither the
females nor the young of the year differ essentially from
the males in their plumage.
The nestling is covered with a rust-coloured hair-like
down on the upper parts; the throat and abdomen dull
white.
h e r o d io n e s . ARDEIDjE.
B ota u r u s l e n t ig in o su s (Montagu*).
THE AMERICAN BITTERN.
Botaurus lentiginosus.
The A merican B it t e r n is an accidental visitor which
has occurred more than twenty times in the British Islands.
The first instance on record is that of the bird shot by Mr.
Cunningham, on the banks of the Froome, in the parish of
Piddletown, Dorsetshire, in the autumn of 1804. The flight
was said to be rather rapid, and the bird made a noise something
like the tap on a drum, which induced him to believe
it was the Common Bittern, and as such he sent it to
Colonel George, of Penryn, in Cornwall, who was at that
* Ardea lentigmosa, Montagu, Suppl. Orn. Diet. (1813).