BITTERNS. 175 



so above the ground, and went so rapidly that he appeared, to glide through the 

 rushes without touching them. I fired, but afterwards ascertained that in my hurry I 

 missed my aim. The bird, however, disappeared at the report ; and thinking I had 

 killed him, I went to the spot. It was a small isolated bed of rushes I hud seen him 

 in ; the mud below and for some distance round was quite bare and hard, so that it 

 would have been impossible for the bird to escape without being perceived ; and yet, 

 dead or alive, he was not to be found. After vainly searching and re-searching 

 through the rushes for a quarter of an hour, I gave over the quest in great disgust 

 and bewilderment, and, after reloading, was just turning to go, when, behold ! there 

 stood my heron as a reed, not more than eight inches from, and on a level with, my 

 knees. He was perched, the body erect and the point of the tail touching the reed 

 grasped by its feet ; the long, slender, tapering neck was held stiff, straight, and verti- 

 cally; and the head and beak, instead of being carried obliquely, were also pointing 

 up. There was not, from the feet to the tip of the beak, a perceptible curve or 

 inequality, but the whole was the figure (the exact counterpart) of a straight tapering 

 rush; the loose plumage arranged to fill inequalities, the wings pressed into the 

 hollow sides, made it impossible to see where the body ended and the neck began, or 

 to distinguish head from neck or beak from head. This was, of course, a front view ; 

 and the entire under surface of the bird was thus displayed, all of a uniform dull 

 yellow like that of a faded rush. I regarded the bird wonderingly for some time ; but 

 not the least motion did it make. I thought it was wounded or paralyzed with fear, 

 and, placing my hand on the point of its beak, forced the head down till it touched 

 the back ; when I withdrew my hand, up flew the head, like a steel spring, to its first 

 position. I repeated the experiment many times with the same result, the very eyes 

 of the bird appearing all the time rigid and unwinking like those of a creature in a fit. 

 What wonder that it is so difficult almost impossible to discover the bird in such an 

 attitude ! But how happened it that while repeatedly walking round the bird through 

 the rushes I had not caught sight of the striped back and the broad dark-colored 

 sides? I asked myself this question, and stepped round to get a side view, when, 

 mirabile dictu, I could still see nothing but the rush-like front of the bird ! His 

 motions on the perch as he turned slowly or quickly round, still keeping the edge of 

 the blade-like body before me, corresponded so exactly with my own that I almost 

 doubted that I had not moved at all. No sooner had I seen the finishing part of this 

 marvellous instinct of self-preservation (this last act making the whole entire), than 

 such a degree of delight and admiration possessed me as I have never before expe- 

 rienced during my researches, much as I have conversed with wild animals in the 

 wilderment, and many and perfect as are the instances of adaptation I have wit- 

 nessed." 



The uncouth 'booming' of the bittern is a mysterious sound of which most 

 authors only speak with reservation and at second hand. Mudie's account of the 

 " savage laughter that sounds as if the voices of a bull and a horse were combined " is 

 often quoted, but he describes it as being produced by the flying bird. This "is evi- 

 dently the offspring of his fine imagination," as Macgillvray correctly remarks, 

 adding : " What a pleasant thing it is to be able to write copiously and with ease on a 

 subject about which one knows nothing!" But we have better evidence that the 

 English names of the European JBotaurus stellaris, such as 'mire-drum,' ' bitter-bump,' 

 'bog-bumper,' only faintly express the roaring ability of this nocturnal performer. J. 

 F. Naumann a keener and trustworthier observer than whom was never born asserts 



