Sexes alike, but young very different, being grayish-brown above with many white or buff spots, and white below with black streaks.
A Summer Citizen of North America, useful in keeping down frogs and small reptiles, but too untidy to be a pleasant neighbor.
A member of the guild of Wise Watchers.
The American Bittern
(The Stake-Driver Or Thunder-Pumper)
Length from twenty-three to thirty-four inches, which is a very unusual difference in birds of the same species. Upper parts all freckled with brown, black, and tan color of various shades, as if sun-burnt, with a velvety black patch on each side of the neck, and the longest wing-feathers plain blackish with brown tips; top of head plain brown.
Under parts tawny whitish or pale buff, every feather with a dark streak, and the middle line of feathers along the whole throat white with brown streaks.
Bill blackish and yellowish; legs greenish; claws brown; eyes yellow.
A Citizen of temperate North America, but a very shy and solitary bird, who will not be neighborly and is oftener heard than seen in the bogs where he likes to live alone. He makes a loud noise that sounds like chopping wood with an axe or driving a stake in the ground with a mallet; so he is called the Stake-driver by some people, while others name him Thunder-pumper and Bog-bull. His body is about as big as a Hen's, and he is sometimes known as Indian Hen, though his very long beak, neck, and legs are not at all like those of a Hen.
A member of the guild of Wise Watchers, who keeps a sharp lookout for the reptiles and little fishes he spears with his strong pointed bill, and places his nest on the ground; the eggs are drab-colored, not pale green like those of most members of the Heron family.