CATALOGUE OF BIRDS. 32 1 



breeding-season have greatly decreased of late years 

 in England owing to drainage and cultivation, 

 nevertheless its eggs were occasionally found in the 

 Broad district of Norfolk down to March 30th, 

 1868, and as recently as August, 1886, a young bird 

 with down still adhering to it was obtained there. 

 Before the reclamation of the East Anglian Fens 

 the ' Butter Bump,' as it was called from its note, 

 bred in them annually, as it did also in other suitable 

 portions of England and Wales ; while even at the 

 present day so many of the birds which regularly 

 visit us are shot in the spring that if a little for- 

 bearance were exercised, the ' boom of the Bittern ' 

 might again be heard in our land " 



Mr. W. Swaysland says, " No doubt the ever- 

 increasing efforts made by the agriculturalist in 

 draining and re-claiming waste and marsh-lands is to 

 a great extent the reason of its scarcity, but what- 

 ever the cause it is much to be feared that the 

 Bittern must be reckoned amongst the list of those 

 British birds that are slowly but surely disappearing 

 from the country." 



Mr. W. H. Hudson remarks as follows: "The 

 Bittern, formerly a common bird, is hardly entitled 

 to a place in this book [' British Birds '] since it has 

 long been extirpated as a breeding-species . . ." 

 Again, " The Bittern comes back to us annually as 

 if ever seekino- to recover its lost footing in our 

 islands, and that he would recover it and breed again 

 in suitable places as in former times is not to be 

 doubted, if only the human inhabitants would allow it, 



