or struggling nightmare with a doleful noise, portending certain death to Hodge, or Joan, or some one else; and this prediction was always fulfilled to the letter, for in the course of the next twelve months some one was sure to die in that county or the next. The flesh of the prophet, however, was very good, provided his skin was stripped off before cooking, that it might not impart a muddy odor and taste.

Thus it will be seen that our bird was a strange compound of good and evil, besides having some magical properties which weighed on neither side; but the march of centuries, which has changed everything for good or ill has had its effect upon the bittern. He can no longer preserve our teeth, nor can he cast a murrain upon our cattle, nor even foretell somebody's death; even his magical light is gone, and he is now a quiet obscure fellow, doing man neither good nor ill, and asking only to be let alone. As to the bitterns of less civilized countries, their manners and customs have never been described at much length, but they appear not to differ much from the American and European species, except that the lineated bittern of Cayenne is said by Latham to be capable of domestication, and to be then an excellent mouser.

The bitterns are all much mottled in plumage, and may be divided by this mottling into three groups, viz.: First, The Rayed Bitterns, in which the mottling takes the form of longitudinal streaks, especially on the breast, in which group are the Botaurus stellaris (i. e., the starry) of Europe and Africa; B. lentiginosus (i. e., the freckled) of North America, and B. pœciloptilo (variegated feather) of Australia; this last is now thought to be identical with B. Australis. Second, the Spotted Bitterns, such as Tigrisoma tigrina (tigerbodied, tiger-like) of Cayenne, and the Javan B. limnophilax (pool-guard, a name which reminds one of Hood's lines:

"The moping heron, motionless and stiff,
That on a stone, as silently and stilly,

Stands, an apparent sentinel, as if

To guard the water-lily").

AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. III.

23

Third, the Pencilled Bitterns, such as Tigrisoma melanolopha (black necked) of Ceylon and Burmah, and probably of the Malay peninsula; Zebrilus undulatus (wavy) of Guiana, and Tig. Braziliensis, whose name denotes its habitat. This last is the most beautiful of the family, its back being black, thickly and delicately pencilled with white and rufous; primaries, dark slate; crown, clear bright, and nape clear dark rufous. In front alone does the bird resemble our own, and even there the colors are brighter and more clearly defined.

No part of ornithological research is more fascinating than the study of feathers; the more we examine them the more we must be lost in admiration of their beauty. I have never seen more beautiful feathers than those of the American Bittern. The ones I am at present examining, though they have been plucked from the bird more than a year, retain a beautiful gloss, hardly inferior to that they wore in life. Both webs of the primaries, and the anterior one of the secondaries, have a lovely bloom of a most delicate ashy blue. There is a very regular gradation in texture, coloration, position of the shaft in the vane, and in most particulars of shape, from the first primary to the last tertial, the former being very dense, strong, of a clear unflecked slaty blue, with but one or two mere hairs of down; end acutely angled, with the shaft very near the anterior edge; the latter very loose in texture, so weak that a mere touch serves to tear its fibres apart; in color slaty brown, most finely marked with wavy lines of rusty brown, and not only very downy three-fourths of the distance to the tip, but furnished with a very soft accessory plume, three inches long and two wide the tip widely rounded, and the shaft at the very centre. Besides these differences, there is also observable a certain indefinite youthfulness, if I may so express it, of color, which distinguishes the tertials from the secondaries; and the secondaries again have an immature, diffident appearance of texture, as compared with the primaries. No

words can express the extreme delicacy and downy softness of some of the body feathers, particularly those of the lower part of the breast, one of which now before me measures 3 inches in length, and 3 in breadth. Our species, like the European, has a black-lead colored patch on the sides of its neck, the feathers of which are very unlike common ones, being little more than shafts with parallel hairs arranged along their sides.

I have given no close descriptions of the various species, because, though such may serve to identify a bird in the hand, they seldom give any vivid idea of an unseen one in the bush. As to size I may remark that B. Braziliensis is the largest species, and Zebrilus undulatus the smallest, standing less than half as high as our bird.

There is a series of small waders found, one or more species in every country, called "small bittern," "least bittern," etc., which I leave out, because I believe they are much nearer the herons, for the following reasons: The bitterns are all thickly mottled; the herons are colored in spaces of clear color,so are most of the "little bitterns." The characteristic color of the bitterns is brown of different shades; of the herons, different shades of ash,-as is the case with most of the "little bitterns." The bittern's feathers stand out so that the bird, particularly about the neck, looks thick and even clumsy; the heron's feathers are so arranged as to give an elegant look to the wearer of them,-so are the "little bittern's." The bittern's egg is of the color I have said; the heron's is of a clear, light green, so is the "little bittern's." In fact the night-herons bear a much greater resemblance to the bitterns than do the small series we have been speaking of. In conclusion, I would say that I have endeavored to make this article correct throughout, but that it is very likely that it has its errors and omissions. I shall be glad to have the former corrected, and the latter supplied.

THE MULE DEER.

BY W. J. HAYS.

THE Mule Deer* (Plate 3) was first mentioned by Lewis and Clark in the report of their journey up the Missouri River. They gave it the name of Mule Deer on account of the length of its ears; the length of the ear, however, varies with individuals. I have one head which I procured on the Upper Missouri, the ears of which measure nine inches from the head, and one from the Platte with ears only seven inches in length; these measurements are from adult males. The description of Mr. Say gives ten inches. Mr. Say first described it and gave it the name of Cervus macrotis.

This deer is much coarser and less graceful than the Cervus Virginianus; its limbs are thicker and longer, although it does not vary much in weight from the largest of the common deer found in the Adirondack Mountains.

The color in summer is a dull grayish brown, and in winter a silvery gray on the body, a line of black on the back and on the breast between the fore legs; the legs are a bright brownish yellow, the upper part of the inside white. The forehead is covered with dark brown hair extending down to a line a little below the eyes. The upper lip and chin are white; there is a band of dark brown running into black, extending from the nostril to the edge of the upper lip. The black band is not so well defined on the lower jaw as in the common deer. The inside of the thighs up to the tail is white; there is also a slight indication of white under the neck. The belly is a yellowish brown, almost as bright as

* Synonymes. -Black-tailed or Mule Deer, Lewis and Clark. Cervus auritus, Warden's United States, vol. 1, p. 245. Cerf Mullet, Desmarest, Mammalogie, p. 43. Jumping Deer, Umfreville, Hudson's Bay, p. 164. Great-eared Deer, Griffith's Animal Kingdom, vol. IV, p. 133. Cervus macrotis Say, Long's Ex., vol. II, p. 254. Cervus macrotis, Harlan's Fauna, p. 243. Cervus macrotus Sabine, Frankiln's Journey, p. 667. Cervus macrotis, Goodman's Natural History, vol. IV, p. 133. Cervus macrotis Peale, Philadelphia Advocate of Science, August, 1834.