NIGHT-HERON. BITTERN. I47 



Genus— NYCTICORAX. 



NYCTICORAX GRISEUS— Night-Heron. 



The Night-Heron has a wide range of habitat. It is known in 

 all the four quarters of the globe, but it is an extremely rare visitor 

 to the British Isles. Its nocturnal habits may possibly sometimes 

 screen it from observation, but so far as is known, it has not occurred 

 here much more than a dozen times. The specimen in the 

 Hereford Museum, was formerly in the collection of the late Mr. 

 Moss, of Ross, and is labelled " Backney Marsh," a marsh situated 

 about two miles from Ross, but nothing further is known about it. 



Genus— BOTAURUS. 

 BOTAURUS STELLARIS— Bittern. 



The busying Bittern sits, which through his hollow bill 

 A sudden bellowing sounds, which many times doth fill 

 The neighbouring marsh with noyse, as though a bull did roare. 



Drayton— Folyolbion. 



The Bittern booming in the reeds. 



KiRKE Write— Thne. 



" The poor fish have enemies enough, besides such unnatural fishermen as 

 Otters, the Cormorant, and the Bittern."— Isaac Walton. 



The Bittern sounds his drum 

 Booming from the sedgy shallows. 



Scott— Lady of the Lake. 



The Bittern lone that shakes the hollow ground, 

 While through still midnight groans the hollow sound. 



A. Wilson — Loch Winnock, 



The loud Bittern from his bulrush home 

 Gave from the salt ditch side the bellowing boom. 



Crabbe— Peter Grimes. 



The startling boom ot the Bittern is rarely to be heard in 

 England at the present time. It was moderately plentiful at the 

 beginning of the present century in Herefordshire, in the waste 

 land, and marshy districts of the county ; but of late years, it has 

 rarely been met with. It is a shy bird, concealing itself by day 



