BOTAURUS MINOR, BITTERN. 525 



know of no other i)lace in New England where these birds breed in such 

 abundance as in the neighborhood of Eichardsou's Lakes, in Maine- 

 There, in some of the tangled, boggy, almost impenetrable swamps, 

 these birds have several heronies, which they have inhabited for years." 

 It will be observed that this account is directly contradictory of a state- 

 ment of Audubon's: "Although in a particular place, apparently favor- 

 able, some dozens of these birds may be fouud to-day, yet, perhaps, on 

 visiting it to-morrow, you will not find one reuuiining, and districts re- 

 sorted to one season or year, will be found deserted by them the next." 



With these accounts we may compare Mr. Endicott's observations : 

 "Some speak of finding the Bittern breeding in colonies in trees. Good 

 observers say so, and I believe them ; but 1 think that all such cases 

 are owing to accidental circumstances, such as tlie inundation of their 

 marshes. Certain it is, that 1 have never found them so associated. 

 'Le butor,' says M. Holandre, 'est tres sauvage, farouche, solitaire.' 

 One tiger's den to a jungle, one eyry to a mountain, and one pair of 

 Bitterns to a bog, seems to be the rule. In the place where I have found 

 them there is retired feeding ground for a thousand ; dense cedar 

 swamps, extensive enough for as many nests, if they only chose to 

 congregate, like their sociable cousins, the Herons ; and yet two by 

 two they live, their next neighbors nobody knows how far away — not 

 in the same swamp at any rate ; and on the ground, the bare ground, 

 they lay their four or five eggs, among low laurel, tufts of grass, or, as 

 in the case of the first nest I ever found, at the foot of a swamp huckle- 

 berry, from which the callow young, unable yet to stand, tried to drive 

 me away by repeated tumbling charges, menacing me by clumping their 

 soft mandibles, and by sending angry hisses from their wide-yawning 

 yellow throats." 



Mr. Endicott remarks very pointedly upon the general uncertainty 

 that i)ervades ornithological writings respecting the color of the Bit- 

 tern's eggs, "finding the enumerated authorities determined that the 

 eggs should have green on them of some shade or other." He calls 

 them "a dark drab"; Mr. Samuels says "a rich drab, with sometimes 

 an olive tinge." The color of the several sets before me may be called 

 a brownish-drab, with a shade of gray. It is a difficult color to name, 

 and doubtless varies in tint in different specimens ; but it is probably 

 never anything like the clear, pale greenish of the eggs of ordinary Her- 

 ons. Specimens measure 1.90 by 1.50, to 2.00 by 1.50; the nest-comple- 

 ment is three to five. 



The "booming of the Bittern" is an expression, alliterative if not 

 accurate, which generally gets into writings upon this bird. I have 

 never heard any sound from our species which could be called booming, 

 bleating, bellowing, or even neigbiug — all of which words, among others, 

 have btien used to suggest the queer, uncouth voice of the bird. On 

 this subject 1 will again liave recourse to Mr. Endicott for an extract. 

 "Mudie speaks as follows of the European Bittern's voice : 'Anon a 

 burst of savage laughter breaks upon you, gratingly loud, and so un- 

 wonted and odd that it sounds as if the voices of a bull and a horse 

 were combined ; the former breaking down his bellow to suit the neigh 

 of the latter, in mocking you from the sky.' 'When the Bittern booms 

 and bleats overhead, one certainly feels as if the earth were shaking. 

 * * * * ChancQV si)iia\iii iiHi'oUows ill The Wife of Bath's Tula: 



'And as a bitore bnmbleth in the mire, 

 She laid hire month into th() water (h)nn, 

 Bi'wray ino uot, thou water, with they souir, 

 Quod mIr', to the I tell it, uud uo mo, 

 Min husbaud hath loug asses eres two.' 



