130 HERONS AND BITTERNS.

heard “ booming” in smaller and more accessible swampy places. Like - the other members of its family, it excels in standing still, and will hold its head erect and motionless amid the tall grass till the watcher tires of looking and pronounces the suspicious object nothing but a stick after all. The Bittern’s fame rests upon its vocal performance, or " boom.” This is sometimes exactly like the working of an old-fash- ioned wooden pump, and sometimes—even with the same bird—like the driving of a stake in a bog. It can be heard for a long distance. The performance is best witnessed in spring, while the grass is still low. That it is not so very difficult at that season to steal a march upon the bird may perhaps be considered as established on the testi- mony of a man who has never lived near a Bittern meadow. and yet has watched the performance at much length and at near range. on several occasions. His first experience of this kind is described some- what fully in The Auk, vol. vi, page 1. The strange notes are deliv- ered with equally strange contortions, as if the bird were horribly nauseated, and are preceded by a succession of quick snapping or gulping sounds—“hiccoughs,” one observer has called them. No water is employed in the operation, in spite of the circumstantial as- sertions of several persons who profess to have seen the bird swallow- ing and then ejecting it.—BaADronD TORREY.

191. Ardetta. exilis (Gmel.). Lassr BITTERN. Ad. 6 .—Top of the . head, back, and tail shining black; back of the neck chestnut—rufous; most of the greater wing-eoverts and outer vanes of the secondaries darker; lesser wing-coverts and part of the greater ones bufiy; under parts. including under tail—cover“, washed with bufl'y; a blackish patch at either side of the breast. Ad. 9.‘—Similar, but head browner and back light, glossy umber; under parts darker and more or less streaked with brownish. 1m. 6 .—Similar to ad. 6, but the back washed and tipped with chestnut; under parts darker and lightly streaked with black. 1m. 9 .wsimilar to ad. 9 , but the back rufous, margined with bufi'y ochraceous. L., 1300; W., 4'60; Tan, 1’60: B., 180.

Range—Temperate and tropical America; breeds in North America as far north as Maine, Ontario, and Manitoba; winters from southern Florida southward.

Washington, not very numerous S. R., May 5 to Sept. 25. Long Island. common S. R., May to Sept. Sing Sing, tolerably common S. R., to Aug. 10. Cambridge, rather common S. R., May 15 to Aug.

Nest, of grasses, plant stems, etc., in marshes among rushes, sometimes in a small bush. Eggs, three to six, pale bluish white, 1‘20 x '92.

Wet, grassy marshes such as Rail love, or reed~grown ponds that Gallinules frequent, are the resorts of these retiring, secretive little birds. With outstretched necks and lowered heads they make their way without difficulty through the jungle of roots and stalks. Some- times they climb up a slender reed, and, hanging on like Marsh Wrens,