XVII 
THE BITTERN 
Ir was a great day for me when I first heard 
the so-called booming of the bittern. For more 
than ten years I had devoted the principal part 
of my spare hours to the study of birds, but 
though I had taken many an evening walk near 
the most promising meadows in my neighbor- 
hood, I could never hear those mysterious pump- 
ing or stake-driving noises of which I had read 
with so much interest, especially in the writings 
of Thoreau. 
The truth was, as I have since assured myself, 
that this representative of the heron family was 
not a resident within the limits of my everyday 
rambles, none of the meadows thereabout being 
extensive and secluded enough to suit his whim. 
There came a day, however, when with a 
friend I made an afternoon excursion to Way- 
land, Massachusetts, on purpose to form the 
stake-driver’s acquaintance. We walked up the 
railway track across the river toward Sudbury, 
