360 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
The food of the Bittern consists, like that of 
others of the family, of fish, frogs, beetles, mice, 
young water-fowl, leeches, snakes, worms, and also 
small birds that come within its reach:* Montagu 
also adds the warty lizard. It is certainly a vora- 
cious bird, as the stomach of one contained two 
young pike, one seven and the other eight inches in 
length; in the stomach of another was found the 
remains of a flat fish, some sea-weed, and a hard 
pellet of the fur of some animal, apparently that of 
the water rat and shrew mixed; there were also a 
few feathers: Mr. Jeffery, the writer of the note, 
asks, “‘ Does the Bittern throw up pellets of the fur 
of those animals which it eats?” ‘This question 
does not appear to me to have been answered yet, but 
it would seem probable that both fur and feathers 
are rejected in this manner. Yarrell mentions a 
whole Water Rail having been taken from the sto- 
mach of a Bittern, and such a mass of indigestible 
matter as the feathers must have been would have 
caused serious discomfort unless rejected. A con- 
siderable amount of sea-weed, as well as fresh-water 
weed, is often found in the stomach of the Bittern: 
these weeds seem more probably to be swallowed 
with than taken separately as food. 
The Bittern is a very handsome bird, though 
without any great variety of colour, as its plumage 
* Meyer's ‘ British Birds,’ vol. iv., p. 158. 
