166 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
large species of rail. Failing to find sufficient shelter, 
it would take refuge in one corner, and crouching down 
on its tarsi, face the intruder with the most peculiar, 
not to say comical expression. As in Mr. Gould’s clever 
drawing in his “ Birds of Great Britain,” the head and 
neck were drawn back into its shoulders, with the throat 
and beak raised, almost perpendicularly, whilst from near 
the base of its sharp mandibles, a pair of keen eyes were 
directed forwards and downwards, which, from whatever 
side approached, seemed always fixed on one’s own. 
This bird was still in good health, though in rather 
ragged plumage from its restless habits, when I last 
saw it on the Ist of October. 
Hitherto I have spoken only of the bittern as a 
denizen of the broads, but there is reason to believe that 
it was formerly even more abundant still in the Hock- 
wold and Feltwell fens in the south-western part of the 
county. There, as Mr. Alfred Newton was informed in 
1853 by William Spencer,* a thatcher, at Feltwell, whose 
ereat-grandfather, grandfather, and uncle have all been 
gamekeepers in that neighbourhood, “ bottleybumps ”’+ 
used to be extremely plentiful, selling like snipe for one 
shilling a piece. His grand-father used to have one 
roasted every Sunday for dinner, and they would le in 
the sedge (which was in places five or six feet high), till 
they were nearly trodden upon. They were most com- 
mon about Popplelot, and his uncle once shot five in one 
day. Drainage, however, and an extensive reclamation 
of marsh ground has long ago expelled them from these 
once favourite haunts, with the ruffs, redshanks, and 
black-terns, their former companions, and now only an 
occasional straggler is seen during the winter months. 
* The same man whose evidence as to the heron nesting on 
sallow bushes, in Feltwell fen, has been given at p. 132, note. 
+ Bottle-bump, or Bottleybump, a provincial name for the 
bittern, so termed, no doubt, from its peculiar cry. 
