18 DICTIONARY OF NAMES OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



Bitter Bank or Bitterie. Scottish Border names for the 

 SAND-MARTIN, supposed to have arisen from its habit 

 of biting the bank as it makes its nesting-tunnel (Bolam). 



Bitter, Bytter, or Bitter Bum : The BITTERN. (Provincial.) 

 Drayton (" Polyolbion ") has the '' buzzing bitter." Nelson 

 and Clarke cite " Bvtter or Bitter " as occurring in 

 " Ne\alle's Marriage Feast," 1526. 



BITTERN [No. 268]. This fine species formerly bred com- 

 monly in many parts of the British Islands. The name 

 Bittern is from Old English bitoure, bittour, bittoura, 

 bytoure, botor, or buttour, cognate mth Fr. hutor, Low 

 Lat. hutorius. Dr. Murray says the word is of doubtful 

 origin, but it seems probable that it is from the mediaeval 

 name for bitterns, Botaurus, which again was no doubt 

 originally derived from the taurus of Pliny (bk. x., c. 42), 

 a bird that imitated the lowing of an ox, and was no doubt 

 the Bittern. The name occurs as " Buttour or bittour " 

 in Turner (1544), as " Bittur " ia Spenser f " Faerie Queene "), 

 as "Bitter" in Drayton ("Polyolbion") and as "Bittour 

 or Bittern or Mire-drum " in Willughby (1678), Avho saj's, 

 " it is called by later wTiters Butorius and Botaurus because 

 it seems to imitate hoatum tauri, the bellowing of a bull." 

 He also writes, " They say that it gives always an odd 

 number of bombs at a time, viz. three or five, which in my 

 own observation I have found to be false. It begins to 

 bellow about the beginning of Februarj^, and ceases when 

 breeding-time is over. The common people are of opinion 

 that it thrusts its bill into a reed, by the help whereof 

 it makes that lowing or drumming noise. Others say that 

 it thrusts its bill into the water or mud or earth." In 

 Thomson's " Spring " we find this idea expressed : — 



The Bittern knows his time with bill ingulpht 

 To shake the surrounding marsh. 



Burns also expresses the same belief : — 



Ye Bitterns, till the quagmire reels 

 Rair for his sake ! 



Subsequent -wTiters, after Willughby, call it the Bittern. 

 When more common, its flesh was accounted a delicacy, 

 and even in Montagu's day (1802) we are told the 

 poulterers valued it at not less than half-a-guinea. 



Bittern Heron : The BITTERN. (Pennant.) 



Bittour, Bittourn, or Bittur : The BITTERN (formerly). 

 The first name occurs in Turner, the second in Merrett, 

 and the third in Spenser. Montagu gives Bittour as a 



