330 BRITISH BIRDS. 



where reeds and rushes abound, the bird may be heard in 

 spring, throughout North Holland, Friesland, and the 

 shallow lagoons bordering on the various outlets of the 

 Rhine. Grenerally a solitary pair seems to frequent each 

 mere, but in favoured localities the birds are more 

 numerous, as many as three being heard at one time, 

 though each pair keeps to its own ground in the marsh. 

 In the spring of 1903, when, through continuous rain, and 

 the consequent backing up of the water, most of the low- 

 lying Fries meadows were flooded, the boom of the 

 Bittern was heard everywhere, and if breeding, it must 

 have done so on the flooded meadows, but in ordinary 

 seasons the note is confined to favoured localities only. 



From the protection afforded to the eggs by the secluded 

 position of the nest, one would expect the bird to increase, 

 but on enquiring of the marshmen why it did not do so, we 

 were told that it was shot in winter for eating. It lingers 

 therefore only in those parts of Holland which have not 

 been reclaimed from fen, in numbers which appear to be 

 pretty constant, breeding only where there is plenty of 

 water. 



The peculiar note from which the Dutch name (Roerdompj 

 is derived, is uttered as the bird sits in some reed-bed 

 over the water. It resembles the bellowing of a bull, but 

 with a deeper resonance. When heard at close quarters 

 the bird seems to catch its breath three times, as if 

 inhaling air, and then booms three or four times, the first 

 boom sounding half-choked, the others clear and loud, 

 after which it is silent for twenty minutes to half-an-hour. 

 On wet days the note is heard oftener than on fine. 



As regards the means of producing a note of so great a 

 volume, various theories have been propounded. The old 

 superstition that the bird thrusts its bill into a reed-stem 

 in or(Jer to increase the sound may be dismissed at once, 

 but the note when heard at close quarters sounds as if 

 some pent-up force were bursting forth, and perhaps the 

 statement of Leonhard Baldner, the Strasburg naturalist 

 (1666), that " the voice of these birds is produced through 



