Length to end of tail 7 8/12 inches, to end of wings 7 7/12, to end of claws 8 8/12; extent of wings 14 1/4; wing from flexure 5; tail 2 1/4; bill along the back 9 1/2/12, along the edges 1; tarsus 1 2/12; middle toe 10/12, its claw 2/12.
Young Male in winter plumage. Plate CCIX. Fig. 1.
The Adult Male which is represented in Plate 284, is similar in colouring to the female as described above, but the lore is dusky, the white band on the forehead is surmounted by one of brownish black, and there is a half collar of the same colour across the neck in front.
THE LEAST BITTERN.
Ardea exilis, Gmel.
PLATE CCX. Male, Female, and Young.
One morning while I was at the Cincinnati Museum in the State of Ohio, a woman came in holding in her apron one of this delicate species alive, which she said had fallen down the chimney of her house under night, and which, when she awoke at daybreak, was the first object she saw, it having perched on one of the bed posts. It was a young bird. I placed it on the table before me, and drew from it the figure on the left of my plate. It stood perfectly still for two hours, but on my touching it with a pencil, after my drawing was done, it flew off and alighted on the cornice of a window. Replacing it on the table, I took two books and laid them so as to leave before it a passage of an inch and a half, through which it walked with ease. Bringing the books nearer each other, so as to reduce the passage to one inch, I tried the Bittern again, and again it made its way between them without moving either. When dead, its body measured two inches and a quarter across, from which it is apparent that this species, as well as the Gallinules and Rails, is enabled to contract its breadth in an extraordinary degree.
While I was in Philadelphia, in September 1832, a gentleman presented me with a pair of adult birds of this species, alive and in perfect plumage. They had been caught in a meadow a few miles below the city, and I kept them alive several days, feeding them on small fish and thin stripes of pork. They were expert at seizing flies, and swallowed caterpillars, and other insects. My wife admired them much on account of their gentle deportment, for although on being tormented, they would spread their wings, ruffle their feathers, and draw back their head as if to strike, yet they suffered themselves to be touched by any one without pecking at his hand. It was amusing to see them continually attempting to escape through the windows, climbing with ease from the floor to the top of the curtain by means of their feet and claws. This feat they would repeat whenever they were taken down. The experiment of the books was tried with them, and succeeded as at Cincinnati. At the approach of night they became much more lively, walked about the room, in a graceful manner with much agility, and generally kept close together. I had ample opportunities of studying their natural positions, and drew both of them in the attitudes exhibited in the plate. I would gladly have kept them longer; but as I was bound for the south, I had them killed for the purpose of preserving their skins.
This bird ranges over most part of the United States, but is nowhere to be found in tolerable abundance excepting about the mouths of the Mississippi and the Southern portions of the Floridas, especially the “Ever-glades.” I have met with them to the eastward as far as New Brunswick, on our large lakes, and in the intermediate portions of the country, although I have seldom found more than one or two at a time. In the Floridas and Carolinas they have been known to breed in small communities of four or five pairs. One instance of this was observed by my friend Dr Horlbeck of Charleston, and Dr Leitner, another friend of mine, found them quite abundant in certain portions of the Florida marshes.
Although the Least Bittern is not unfrequently started in salt marshes, it gives a decided preference to the borders of ponds, lakes or bayous of fresh water, and it is in secluded situations of this kind that it usually forms its nest. This is sometimes placed on the ground, amid the rankest grasses, but more frequently it is attached to the stems several inches above it. It is flat, composed of dried or rotten weeds, and in shape resembles that of the Louisiana Heron, although this latter employs nothing but sticks. The eggs are three or four, seldom more, of a dull yellowish-green, without spots, an inch and a quarter in length, almost equal at both ends.
When the young are yet quite small, their heads are covered with large tufts of reddish down, their bill is very short, and they sit on their rump with their legs extended on each side before their body, in the manner of young Herons. If disturbed when about two weeks old, they leave the nest and scramble through the grass with celerity, clinging to the blades with their sharp claws whenever this is necessary. At a later period they seem to await the coming of their parents with impatience; and if no noise is made, you may hear them calling continually in a low croaking voice for half an hour at a time. As soon as they are able to fly, they not unfrequently alight on the branches of trees to escape from their various enemies, such as minxes and water snakes, the latter of which destroy a good number of them.