Bittern

[Du. butoor; Lat. botaurus, bos - taurus.] (Zool.) The popular name of the birds composing the gen. Botaurus, fam. Ardeidæ. The common B. ( Botaurus stellar is ) of Europe and Africa, to which closely resembles the Stake-driver ( B. lentiginosus ) of North America, is Fig . 363. BITTERN, OR STAKE-DRIVER, ( Botaurus lentiginosus .) smaller than the heron, and has long legs and neck, stalks among reeds and sedges, feeding on fish, and emitting a singular noise, wild and dreary, called its booming. It seldom appears by day, but stalks from its sedgy nest at the stillne of night, to feed on the fish of the meres. It was formerly held in great esteem for its meat, but chiefly for hawking, as it yielded better and more exciting sport than the heron, its long, lance-like bill transfixing its antagonist with remarkable ease, though the great point at which it aims is the eye. The stake-driver is 26 to 27 inches long, the wing 11 inches; the color is brownish-yellow, finely varied with dark brown and brownish-red; and there is a broad, black stripe on each side of the neck. It seldom flies till you are close upon it, and then it moves off very sluggishly. (Chem.) A name used in salt-works for what is known as the mother-water, -the supernatant liquor, after the in various parts of the world there are numerous bands of tough clayey matter of a gray, brown, or black color, sometimes pa ing into coal, and resembling bad coal in appearance. They have more or le of a slaty fracture, are often repeated, like other beds of clay, in a vast thickne of strata, and occupy a definite position with regard to coal. They are found generally, but not always, near true coal of all ages. The posidonia schists of the lias, and the paper - coal , so called, of the tertiary period, near Bonn, are varieties. Although some of these shales yield much gas on exposure to destructive distillation, they are even more valuable as affording oils and paraffine, when distilled at a dull red heat. The percentage of oil obtained from bituminous shales varies exceedingly, but le than 5 per cent. can hardly be remunerative. Some of these, which afford as much as 30 per cent., are extremely valuable, such as the so-called Boghead coal or Torbane mineral of Scotland. Shales approach coal in their appearance, and are used for burning. - See Gas, PARAFFINE, .